CITY oF LIGHT
by CTCORBITT
Summary: When Booker DeWitt brought the girl back to New York City, he'd planned a one way trip...there would be no more tears and no more lighthouses. Still, a life with Elizabeth would surely be worth it..even considering THAT sticky detail. But when the Morello Mob comes calling at 108 Bowery, the pair discover that even in the real world there is ALWAYS one more lighthouse.
1. 108 Bowery Street

**BOOK II: CITY oF LIGHT**

 **Chapter 1. 108 Bowery Street - Monday, July 29nd, 1912**

 _Once upon a time there was a little girl who was raised in a tower. She didn't have overly long hair nor a wicked step-mother holding her hostage, well, not precisely...she did have a mother who very much did not like her, and a wicked father, which was how she came to be alone in the tower. Attended to by the finest tutors in literature, mathematics and politics, the girl was given all she could possibly want save for one thing...love. Despite all the attention, she was very lonely and over the many years began to let her tutors know so. Frightened by her tantrums, one by one the tutors refused to come, leaving the girl even more alone with only her drawings and singing and books to keep her company. And then, one day after she'd nearly lost all hope, a man fell into her life...literally._

As the ink dulled upon the yellowing paper a breeze wafted through the open window, rustling the curtains, turning the page corners up where they sat upon Booker's old wooden desk. As I hovered there with black pen in hand I knew written words could never capture the horror of what Booker and I had been through in that far off, terrible place called Columbia. I wondered, _would anyone even care_ , here in this foreign land of so many people, one so different than that I'd known? Had I truly even known it, Columbia? All I'd really known of my home were the velvet lined walls of my prison, what I'd read in books and the vista of a fantasy from windswept heights. Like Booker had said, this place now was home.

And Columbia had never existed.

In our weeks here Booker had been good to me, taking me out to a nearby dress shop to get some cheap clothing. He'd said it was as far as he'd dare take me for fear of being sighted, as if we went any farther away I'd disappear. And though he'd been happy to do so, I'd known it must have cost his last pennies. With all the effort he'd gone to, I hadn't the heart to tell him I didn't like the dresses. Even now the white ruffled blouse he'd bought made me feel like a peacock. Its 'matching' skirt hung rather heavily upon my lap.

I placed the pen into the inkwell and stood, gazing out the window, feeling the perspiration damp beneath the cloth. With the green skirt heavy I pressed my palms upon the sill...felt the roughness of the wood. The breeze caressed my face and I closed my eyes, feeling it tease my hair on a warm and blue New York City afternoon. As my eyelids opened I could see automobiles trundling by on the street below, some glinting black in the morning light, others dingy, their engines puttering, horns honking as they negotiated the ancient brick valley Booker had called Bowery. People of all sorts coursed beside them, moving north and south in a crush beneath the tracks of the El, crying and shouting. All along the ruddy frontages, above the rainbow of awnings, laundry hung out to dry, white sheets and pants and unmentionables wafting in the wind. My laundry had always come from a dumbwaiter.

Emporia had apparently had automobiles like these, though I'd seen their wrecks only after its fall. Upon the raised tracks outside a train approached at eye level, cyclopean eye brilliant, five cars racing by such that they rattled the walls and jostled Booker's shadow box, jiggled the jewelry case and my inkwell. Planting the toe of my boot firmly to brace myself, I drew the window pane down with my hands and cut off the cacophony. The noise took me back now, beyond the days here in New York and through the doors I vaguely remembered…back to the city in the sky. Even now I could see Cornelius Slate's terrified face, the hand of his mechanical monstrosity clinging to the _Prophet's_ railing as the airship exploded and fell. Poor Joshua too, his men and the _Prophet's_ alike. I closed my eyes, feeling tears, wishing I could have done something to save them. It hurt so badly. They'd been such good men, and the world _needed_ good men.

The morning had been warm and with Booker out I'd been bored, trying my hand at prose, pacing the apartment against his orders to remain inside. He didn't have any books and the ones I'd managed to find on the history of this city and America from the nearby tenements I'd already devoured, leaving me alone with stilted words upon old paper.

It had been two weeks since in a daze of jumbled memories we'd returned. With nothing better to do, I wiped futile tears away and made for the broom, sweeping anew his floorboards of dust for the umpteenth time and pondering if cages did indeed have their advantages. Studying these yellow papered walls I'd seen so many times before yet _not_ seen, I wondered how any of what we'd been through was possible.

My finger twinged.

I looked upon it like the devil, knowing that after living with it my whole life that neither cradle nor rub nor even shake would lend relief. Yet shake it I did as one would to clear a thermometer. What _would_ help it, I knew, was to open a tear. Out of instinct and a profound desire for relief I tried...only to find nothing.

Nothing.

I'd tried not to look since Booker had shown it to me, and anxious about the matter I began to hum and sweep in order to distract myself. Then, for the first time since Columbia, I added to my wistful tune words. They were words I knew yet didn't, coming to me like a dream, Italian words whose meaning tugged at me yet eluded my waking mind.

With housekeeping apparently not my forte, I set the broom aside and gave in, walking to the jewelry box...my mother's prize. Her name had been Annabelle, he'd told me, and said I looked like her. At that thought I felt ill, realizing where my thoughts were leading...and perhaps why I couldn't write any longer. Throughout the horrors of that city he'd been at my side, there to protect me, and risked his _life_ to save me. Wasn't it _right_ that I'd hoped for something _more_?

Opening the lowest drawer of her keepsake, I found the little ceramic case and opened it to reveal the tiniest tip of a withered finger, so small next to mine. Drawing the thimble from my finger was never a comely thing, but I was familiar enough with the sight of my nub to avoid any upset. For years it had been something I'd kept studiously clean lest infection trouble...a stub that had, until late, had the power to move worlds. Following a forlorn study I placed the thing back inside the drawer and carefully closed the chest, turning back to my writings, knowing the bitterest pill...that even though the girl was rescued, there would never be hope for her and her hero. They would never be together, for there was no universe wherein she both was and was _not_ his daughter. I sat and lent brow to hand, only to hear footsteps approaching from outside in the passageway.

108 Bowery was _not_ the quietest of buildings, nor the best kempt, and every time a person passed down the hall the boards creaked and groaned and everyone on the floor knew it. Outside the boards creaked and strained as if the whole enterprise might collapse, and for a moment I thought it must be _him_. My heart began to race and I couldn't help but smile, looking hastily into the faded mirror to fix the strays of my brown hair. Blue eyes flashed and my smile was unquenchable...at least until the footsteps stopped at the door and I saw through its frosted glass that there were _two_ of them. I saw one of them raise his hand, speaking quietly to his companion in muffled words I also realized to be Italian. Briskly his hand came to pounding on the door. "Mr. DeWitt...Mr. DEWITT! We know you in there, for we see your window open from street! We hear singing! Open the door...we have business to discuss!"

Again came the pounding, those same words, louder and more excitedly. I'd been frightened before, but somehow I knew by their intensity that the door would open one way or another. "Please, just a moment." I said against my better judgement. I'd no idea of who these men were, but hoped a more cooperative response might make the inevitable lie to come more palatable. When I turned the knob two men stood before me in long coats, gray suit and tie beneath.

"May I help you gentlemen?" I asked, looking upward and feeling small. A glance down the hall confirmed we were uncomfortably alone, and that there would be no mobile turrets barging through shimmering tears to protect me. I had to choose my words carefully.

The first of them adjusted his collar and smiled, which was a mistake on his part. Though handsome in a well-dressed, clean cut way, his teeth were not a pleasant site. "We are looking for Mr. DeWitt, young lady." He said with an offhand glance to his fellow. Unlike his dapper friend, this one had an odd head rather like a potato, with an overly large nose and downturned lips that evoked the worst aspects of a Largemouth Bass. His ears bowed outward like an elephant's. I did my best not to notice.

"Mr. DeWitt?" I said, brow furrowing. "I don't believe I'm...oh, wait...would that be the fellow Mrs. Neary informed me of?"

"Inform you of?" The dentally challenged one said with a brush of dark hair, doing his best to keep his lips over teeth.

"She said that he moved out in some haste several days ago...left the apartment abandoned. My brother and I were lucky enough to happen upon it at a good rent. With prices these days one can hardly afford to pass up a bargain, don't you think?" They simply stared at me and I felt terribly uneasy, clasping arms half consciously about my waist. "I'm afraid I've no idea where the man has gotten off to, though I must say that from my own luck and the anecdotes I've heard from the other tenants, he mustn't have been a very savory or responsible sort."

"And you are?"

I swallowed uncomfortably and brightened my smile. "Elizabeth. Elizabeth, uh, Comstock."

"Elizabeth... _Comstock_?"

"Yes." I said, heart pounding. "I've moved in here, with, uh, my brother Zachary only but recently. And you gentlemen are?"

"Nicholas Terranova." He said with a sly smile and slither of eyes down my figure. I'd not been drunk in by a man before New York City, indeed hardly even _known_ what that meant. In my few trips on Booker's arm into the great outside, by now I'd had more than enough of it. "This is my brother, Ciro. It is unusual to find such a pretty lady in this neighborhood. And of such refinement."

At his words his 'brother' smiled and Nicholas drew closer. Even as I drew away he turned the back of his hand to my cheek, and I could feel his breath warm upon my neck. "Indeed...so lovely. This brother of yours, _Zachary_ , you say...why would he leave such a young thing as yourself here alone?" Down the hall a door opened and Mrs. Donlietti emerged, her four sons whining and punching one another. I'd seen them before, the children often alone and up to marvelous mischief I'd in a short week come to dread. Today I thought them to be the most blessed thing in the world. With her glance down the corridor and hellions' approach, Nicholas and Ciro seemed to lose their interest, perhaps from her mother's eyes or the chastisement of the prominent brass cross upon her chest.

"Well, dear lady, if Mr. DeWitt happen to wander this way, please...tell him that hour is past and Mr. Crookshanks looks for his money." At the family's passage he smiled, eyes following before turning back to tip my chin with a bony finger. "Maybe there will be reward in it for _you_."

I pulled away, trying hard not to let on how fearful I was. They chuckled at my expense, departing with a considered turn down the hall, drifting down stairs through a mote speckled sunbeam pouring in from the stairwell window. I was thoroughly glad to see them leave, and after pausing to confirm they were indeed going, followed them outside to ensure they were not laying some sort of trap for Booker.

Tarrying upon the stoop the sunlight hit me full force and I raised a closed hand to shield myself. To the south I spied Mrs. Donlietti whipping her boys, yanking one of them back as a racing automobile nearly mowed him down. I winced, hearing the curses of the driver and wondered whether they'd make it back alive. Perhaps she'd at one time had more than four. To the north below the elevated railway the Terranovas merged with the sidewalk crowd in its striated shadows.

These were the men Booker had _warned_ me of all the way back in Columbia, back in the flight up from Battleship Bay where I'd first railed against the true nature of a world I'd only thought I'd known. A world out to enslave me...a world that _had_ enslaved me. And these men were _worse_...petty killers who murdered for money and had this city in their thrall. They would not fall for a girl's dissimulation a second time.

After a time I realized my hand was upon my chest and I could feel the perspiration trickling down the back of my corset, pooling uncomfortably at the small of my back. How different this city was from Columbia, hot and humid, unpleasant in ways I'd never considered possible. Yet as I looked up and about, its architecture reminded me of home, the skyscrapers to the south in the Financial Districts and uptown, towers and airships visible over the eaves of buildings as they had been in Columbia. Perhaps, I thought, that despite all reason, I was homesick for the place.

Sweltering might have been a good word for what I felt just then, and perhaps nausea. As I stood there the thought of Booker's breezy loft and creaky old fan beckoned. I turned back, but as I placed my hand upon 108's doorknob the strangest feeling struck me, one that electrified every nerve in my body. Slowly I turned, hand still within the ruffles of my now damp blouse, gazing eastward as the sun beat down upon hair and contorted brow.

Rubbing my finger, I knew what it was, for I'd known this feeling my whole life. Out there, somewhere, I felt a tear.


	2. Crookshanks

**Chapter 2. Crookshanks**

As my feet turned down East Seventh Street a train roared overhead, drowning out the clattering horses and automobiles. Hands in my jacket's pockets, I hopped curb to sidewalk, looking back over shoulder to see electrified cars racing northward along the El against a brilliant blue sky. Above the receding tracks and canyon of brick a silver cigar headed southward from uptown not far above the skyline, riding the wind that snapped the flags upon the rooftops above. It looked so graceful up there in that breeze, and for a moment I couldn't help but remember Columbia. Reminding myself of how that had all turned out, I suddenly didn't want to think about it any longer. My hand drifted to the bag in my pocket.

Money is a funny thing...I'd needed it in the so called 'White City' hardly at all, but I suppose coin has no value when a world is falling apart. As I'd found over the last days, it has _every_ value when it isn't...especially when you're short. Up ahead on the left, behind four wooden barrels painted green, sat my last, best hope... _McSorley's Old Alehouse_ … _Established 1854_.

Or so letters arced across a sign of green told me.

To either side of its twin doors charcoal window frames held nine panes of glass in broad windows. Before them a horse drawn wagon was tied, two men unloading barrels of what I could only assume was McSorley's finest. In the blistering heat the horses 'end' product didn't smell so fine. As I walked past them I gave the drivers a glance and they me. Red haired Irish boys...the ilk that had torched Comstock's wonder and made the jewel of the North Atlantic into soot.

It had been two weeks since Elizabeth and I had spilled out of the wall of my office and onto the floor, and there, without buildings burning, without the sound of gunfire outside...only the occasional honk from the passing cars, I suppose we could have been forgiven for thinking it was over. I still had difficulty wrapping my mind around what had transpired, finding it hard to believe any of it real. Yet _she_ was real, and _she_ hadn't come from _nowhere_. Yet if I didn't figure out something quickly to placate the Morellos, _nowhere_ was where we would both be.

Either by chance or plan the Terranova boys had been scarce these last weeks, perhaps coming by while we were gone, perhaps having other business to attend to. The Bowery was a long way from their Harlem turf, even by train, and I heard of unrest there...shootings. By Grace I'd hoped they had more urgent matters at hand than a broke one time gambler.

McSorley's outer doors were open as I stepped in and out of the sun, opening inner wooden seconds to enter the bar. It was quiet inside, just before lunch and ill attended. Upon the sawdust one of the establishment's resident cats walked up to me, a gray thing that curled about the brown leather of my boots and purred as if to say hello. Behind me the doors creaked shut. I'd seen it do this to others, the ones the felines considered regulars. Aside from myself only a pair of stevedores were present, talking softly in a corner table beyond the cast iron stove. Their narrowed eyes turned my way.

Ernie Finn was working behind the bar as usual and perked up at my arrival. "Booker!" He said, hanging rag from belt. "You've been a stranger, friend! Been on a job or something?"

"One might say that." I answered and stepped forward to lend my elbows to the edge of the bar. He began to pour me a mug and I decided to cut to the chase. "Look, Ernie..." He finished and slid the frothing draught to me, so cold I could see the perspiration on the mug. I looked at it a long time, longer than I should have.

Seeing my hesitation, Ernie squinted and looked down to see my bandaged hand. He brushed his dark hair back, flashing green eyes my way before continuing in his Dublin brogue. "Not in the mood to share a pint?" He said, drawing the ale away. "If I were a discerning lad, I might think you're in some trouble."

I glanced to the wrap upon my right mitt, seeing it clean if a bit damp and rubbed the bridge of my nose. "I was, but it's over. Look, Ernie...I need a favor. Nick and Ciro...you know I'm in hock up to my ears. I intended to pay them off but something unexpected came up the last couple of weeks. I haven't been able to raise the cash...at least not enough." I tossed the coin pouch on the bar and a single Silver Eagle spilled out, sliding to a halt on the lacquered walnut. "By my count they're out looking for me now and I need to pay up. Before it's too late."

Finn eyed my visage, rough I knew, still a bit bruised from the ordeal weeks ago. In particular my hand had yet to fully heal, and about it I still wore a bandage. He took a glass in hand and rag to it. "And you'd like me to spot you the change?" I hated borrowing from friends, particularly since I knew how he saw me. Drunk, disheveled...lost. "Last I heard, you owed $200, friend. That's a lot of money when I've got a family to support o' my own."

"I know." I said, nodding my head. "I wouldn't ask except...except...well there is this girl. I need it to be right for her. Look, Ernie..." I continued. "I just need sixty six bucks...I have forty in the pouch." Even as I spoke Ernie puzzled and put the glass down, taking one of the Eagles in hand to peruse it with a quizzical eye.

"I don't rightly believe I've seen such a coin as this. Where is it from?"

"Columbia." I said. "It's a long way from here."

"D.C., eh?"

I sighed. "Sixty six bucks will get us both on a steamer bound for Europe and out of here. When we get to France, I'll wire the money back. It might be a couple of months, but you'll get it back...every penny." His green eyes met mine, and with a metallic tap he lay the coin upon the bar and slid it back toward me.

Seventh Street broiled as I hit the pavement, coin pouch in hand, kicking myself for burning my last bridge. I couldn't blame Ernie, though…I was a bum. An n'er do well on a downward roll. I wouldn't have trusted me either. Realizing that I needed to conserve the meager coin Elizabeth and I had, I decided to walk the three quarters of a mile home, weighing the risk of meeting the Terranovas on road or rail equal.

Leaving the horses and strikeout at McSorley's behind, I headed south on Third, keeping to the right of the El's stanchions. As I dodged pedestrians on the sidewalk, the frequent awnings offered respite from the blistering sun.

Toward the middle of Third in the railroad tracks' shadows automobiles ran, overtaking and sometimes honking at the horse drawn carts and laden trucks. The smell of crap filled my nose. Down an alley dogs barked, tearing and growling at something in the piled garbage. It usually took half an hour to make the trek back, beset as it was by cars and my general inebriation. Today in daylight I made better time, though the heat left me hot and clammy beneath my jacket. This wasn't the life I wanted for Elizabeth.

In another world I'd somehow managed to build an empire, to make a city fly, but here I was nothing, a loser, and a failure...a detective who had literally killed his own success. Whatever she saw in me, it was as much of a lie as Comstock. I had no education to speak of, I had no social station and I had no family whom I could fall back on. No matter how one cut it, Booker DeWitt was a lie.

As I merged into the crowd waiting to cross at Third and Kenmare, from the corner of my eye I noticed the papers upon Cushman's New Stand. Beneath the Time's front page headlines concerning the Republican Convention and Roosevelt's inevitable nomination, a lesser banner caught my eye. " _WAR CLOUDS EUROPE_ ," beneath it the grainy photograph of "the Red Menace's newest aerial Leviathan, _Engels."_ Struggling to find work over the last fortnight in a vain attempt to pay my debts, I'd not been reading much news let alone buying papers. I fretted at how strongly it resembled that _Engels_ the girl and I had so grown to fear. Worried now and wishing to show Elizabeth, I purchased a copy for two cents. When finally I rounded the bend and home came into sight I regretted not taking the train, for by then I was soaked with my own sweat.

Home. A dreary, run down tenement in a neighborhood gone to pot.

It fit the model, I supposed. I'd brought her from riches to live in rags. About me laundry hung out to dry above awnings, dangling from clotheslines suspended between the wrought iron of fire escapes. At my approach Moira Neary glanced upward, face wizened by the years we'd to no great affection shared together.

"Yes, Mrs. Neary, I know my rent is due." I preempted. "Look, I have ten dollars that will tide me over the week and I'll have the rest next. Would that be good enough?" I was lying, of course. I had just over forty to our name, forty dollars that would at least get us out of New York to start a new life. Still, I smiled.

"Mr. DeWitt..." The old woman said, shaking her head. "If you'd stop drinking and gambling away your life you might gain a reliable job and earn your keep. I'll take the ten now and you'd better have the thirty by next Friday or, I swear upon Saint Joseph, I'm throwing you out of the manger." Subtly I tried to move around her. Firm and stocky, she'd have no part of it. Reluctantly and with untold curses beneath my breath I dug into the purse.

"What's this?" She said as I handed the Silver Eagles over, ten of them as demanded, careful to conceal the rest within the pocket in my jacket.

"Ten dollars. I'll have the rest next Friday."

Neary glanced at the coinage queerly, biting it between her graying teeth before looking upon it again. "Can't say I've rightly seen silver dollars like these, but they do seem to be silver. Very well, Mr. DeWitt, you can stay another week but you know what I've said."

I thanked her and slipped by, heading up the creaking stairs. When I arrived I knocked cursorily before keying the lock. Before me with eyes half upon it as I entered, I held the paper. "Elizabeth, what do you make of this? The paper says it's _Engels_ , just like in Columbia." My words were met by silence. "Elizabeth?" Thinking she'd taken to either the bathroom or old nursery, I opened the door to the empty cradle but no girl within. Frantically I turned. "Elizabeth!"

In a flurry I dropped the paper and was down the hall, down the stairs, racing through 108's open door to Moira Neary. "Mrs. Neary..." I said, grabbing her by the shoulders as she rose from her plants. Nearly out of breath and panting like a dog, I knew I must have looked a fright. "This is very important...have you seen a young woman, brown haired, very pretty about twenty or so?" She looked at me like I was daft. "Blue eyes? Maybe wearing a green skirt and white blouse?"

With disapproving eyes the white haired old woman regarded me and I knew her thoughts. "Mr. DeWitt...if you are entertaining a woman without my knowledge that is explicitly against our agreement. And if you're paying for... "

"I'm not 'entertaining' a woman!" I groaned, realizing that was likely a lie too. "She's a relative, one who needed a place to stay until things got better where she, er, was. Please...she was under strict orders to stay inside until I returned. Please tell me you saw her!"

She shook her head. "I am very sorry, Mr. DeWitt, but I cannot say I have." For a moment she puzzled, shaking her finger at me. "But you know what, there were a couple of gentlemen who came by this morning inquiring for you. I believe they were Italians."

My eyes widened. "A couple of _'gentlemen?_ ' And what did you tell them?!"

"Nothing." She said with a shrug and knelt back to her petunias. "Other than that if they had matters with you, to knock on your door upstairs. I do hate it when I get in the middle of things."

In a panic I hastened upstairs, ignoring her further chastisement. Within a minute I was back down, disregarding her questions, palming my pistol within my jacket and wondering if the pittance of Silver Eagles in my pouch would sway the Terranovas one iota. The Terranovas, I thought. The _Morellos_.

Lupo the Wolf and his dog Crookshanks.

Dammit, I thought, looking in desperation up and down Bowery. I'd hoped so to avoid this, and now the matter was forced. Were they going to hurt her to get at me? Trying not to think about it too much, I headed down the street beneath Grand Street Terminal and west toward Mott Street.

Arthur Crookshanks was one of three main book keepers the Morellos propped up in Little Italy, the area around the Bowery that I'd sunken into over the last twenty years like a famished tick. Sure there were others, but having the toughest crime family in Manhattan backing your operation gave a fixer clout. In years past he'd run a handful of illicit card halls and tables around their countrymen's stomping grounds, and in time the Morellos had naturally developed a relationship with the old fart. When one of his clients failed to pay up his losses, Crookshanks turned to the Lupo the Wolf's 107th Street Mob to exact his pound of flesh.

I had no illusion about what was coming as I stormed up Grand. All around me people were looking at the stranger barging through, blissfully unaware he was likely storming off to his death. Or were they? Maybe they all knew and were laughing behind those indifferent eyes. Yet, what did I truly have to be afraid of? I'd already _lived_ through hell and been shot more times than I could count, not to mention having my hand splayed. I knew the Morellos and I knew Crookshanks. They'd expect me to come in compliant and contrite, hat in hand. Maybe the old Booker would have.

But that Booker hadn't met Comstock.

Just before Mott Street I took the back way, navigating a trash strewn alley to find a rearward fire escape that lead up Crookshanks' back approach. It was from within the old sandstone five story at 150 Mott that the old bastard ran his operation, from a cluster of third floor offices he'd commandeered from his former Neapolitan competition. With toe to plinth at the beige stone's base I clambered up to the ladder, and as it started to lower I went up. Shortly I was at the third floor, treading carefully on wrought iron grating. From my vest holster I drew the black Broadsider and checked my load. A repeater would have been better, but without my girl to produce arsenal from thin air, I figured I was just going to have to make due.

I heard laughter as I approached the open window, curtains ruffling inward in the lofty breeze, a breeze that did well to conceal my approach. I heard Italian banter and Niko's smooth voice, followed by Ciro's high pitched, girlish chuckle. Craning my head inward, I could see the pair sitting against a desk, both unarmed. Both at ease. At his ledger Crookshanks was scrawling something in black ink, rubbing the balding pate of his head with a white handkerchief in hand. With his index finger he shoved those round little glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose. How many times, I thought, had I wanted to punch his lights out? And how many times had I sold my soul to his ponies? My heart was beating...I could feel it, but I also knew they had no damned idea of what was about to hit them.

I grasped the top of the window casing and swung in without fanfare, barely a rustle in the drapes, alighting upon the wooden floorboards before Ciro or Nick could move. They turned to me, eyes wide. I held the Broadsider utterly steady at Nick's head. "Where is she?"

Ciro made the mistake of moving and I smashed him in the face with an elbow, sprawling him back across the desk he'd been reclining upon. For a moment I thought he'd rise...he'd always been that type...but Nick raised an open palm to him and backed him off. "DeWitt." At his desk Crookshanks had half risen, pressing those beady round glasses in panic as he glanced over to Ciro. As Nick's brother gained his wits, blood poured from his nostrils.

"The _girl_." I growled. "I won't say it again. Bring her to me... _now_!"

As Nick and Ciro stood there, Crookshanks shook his head. "DeWitt, put the gun down. There is no need for that here."

"There sure as hell is." I retorted. "Look, I haven't been welching, I've been busy making the money I owe you. I have most but not all of it..." With my free hand I tossed the coin pouch upon Crookshanks blotter. "And I'll have the rest next week...but you're going to leave the girl out of this or I'm going to be the end of you all, right here, right now. Get her."

Whereas Ciro had moved too fast, Niko had kept his calm. "DeWitt, surely you know any inconsiderate actions here will be your last."

Crookshanks shook the purse and looked into it before tossing it back my way. I caught it with my same empty hand, a look of bewilderment surely upon my face. "It seems we have a bit of a misunderstanding here, Mr. DeWitt. This girl you speak of...we have her not. And if you are worried about my associates' visit this morning, I must tell that was before your salvation arrived but an hour ago, thanks to the U.S. Mail. I suppose communications have been lacking. My apologies."

I'd never heard Crookshanks apologize to anyone before, let alone me. "What the hell are you talking about, _Arthur_?"

"We don't have her. Besides, as I said there is no need for strife...your debt has been paid." With raised hands he backed away, cautiously reaching downward to draw a check from his drawer. He held it so I could see…two hundred dollars, paid in full. "Signed by one _Robert Laslowe_."

If I could have possibly been in any more of a hurry than I'd been getting to Crookshank's, I was in more of one getting back home. I didn't stopped to say I was sorry to the 'boys,' who despite Crookshank's pardon had glared at me with bitter eyes. I exited the way I'd come with only one word on my mind, one _name_...one name burning in my head. One threat.

Rounding the corner beneath Grand Street Station I ran headlong into a woman, the girl yelping as produce and groceries flew into the air and she spilled to the ground. "Oh, good grief, I am so sorry." I said. Yet as I knelt to put strewn vegetables into her basket, I wondered why I was wasting time, for time was what I didn't have.

When I looked up I saw the girl upon rump and hands, brown ponytail knocked astray and black boot tips pointed skyward. "Booker?" She said, eyes locked with mine…eyes that after her initial astonishment gleamed so very brightly. I felt emotion overcome me and took her into my arms, closing my eyes in thanks, squeezing her until I realized I might just be crushing her. I pulled back and kissed her forehead. Despite our collision she wasn't mad, just dazed, and her voice was full of worry. "Are...are you all right?"

"I am now." I said. When again I opened my eyes it was to a busy street north and south. From their cars and carts people were looking at our spectacle, proper men and women circumnavigating the odd couple picnicking messily upon the curb. "These..." I looked at her groceries and put the last of them back in the basket. "Yours?"

" _Ours._ " She smiled and brushed her loosened hair aside. I stood and helped her up, ending face to face where that smile of hers. It turned to apprehension. "Booker, some men came to visit this morning. They..." She brushed her hair aside from where it had strayed into her eyes. "They said they were looking for you."

"You _opened_ the door?!" I asked incredulously, hands upon hips. "Don't answer that...why are you out here, Elizabeth? I expressly forbid you to leave without me!"

She shook her head, intentionally not meeting my eyes. "I thought we needed food, and I'm not your prisoner, you know. I do have a say in this...and besides..."

"Not if something happens to you." I said gruffly. To our left a woman and her girl stepped around us, little girl in hand. From beneath her cap the little blonde looked up to us with pernicious blue eyes. Elizabeth's own turned back to mine sheepishly, realizing I'd only been barking out of fear.

"Where have you been, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Looking for _you_." I said, taking her arm gently while clutching the basket firmly in my other. She'd turned her gaze sidelong to my jacket, spying the Broadsider secreted within.

"You went to see them." She said as we approached 108. By now Mrs. Neary was gone, which meant at least I didn't need to explain the girl to her.

"No, I went to _kill_ them."

For a moment she just stood there, small mouth open, eyes wide. "Back in Columbia...you said they were dangerous."

"So am I. I _won't_ lose you again." Negotiating the foyer and steps upward, we shortly came to 108.

 _Booker DeWitt- Investigations into matters both public & private_, the words on the glass read.

As usual I checked the door, turning the key to enter. Inside the place was much as I had left it, though cleaner. Upon the wall where vaguely I remembered Elizabeth standing in my nightmares, a broom stood in her place. Despite its decrepit state inside the office was neat. A woman's touch had come to Booker DeWitt's hovel. Not bothering to digest the changes further, I set the basket down and headed for my scant possessions, finding in the corner behind Anna's jewelry chest a knapsack.

"What are you doing?" Elizabeth asked as she garnered an apple, cradling it in upraised hand with her other.

"We're leaving. Gather your things."

"That should be easy." She mumbled, glancing about the barren place before turning back to me. "But to where?" I could hear uncertainty in her voice as she placed the fruit back into the basket, and despite her reassurance it was obvious mentally she was not prepared.

"Anywhere but here." Crookshanks was one thing…assuming the check I'd seen was not some crazy trap. But Nick and Ciro didn't forgive.

And Laslowe was another matter.

"What did you _do_?" She said with tensing brow, the lines of her face strained by worry. Amid my frenzy she took my arm, steadied me and forced me to meet her eyes.

"I got emotional. I was afraid. I was afraid they'd taken you and were going to..."

"They _didn't_." She said and kissed me.

At the touch of her lips the sack slipped from my grasp, and with her close my arms slipped round her back, hands finding beneath her blouse the back of her corset. Like her face Elizabeth's lips were perfect and soft. In them I could feel not only love but desire. When we parted her eyes were closed, brow still furrowed, nostrils flaring. Her cheeks were pink with warmth. She opened her eyes slightly and smiled.

 _God_ _help me_ …I thought.

"Booker..." She whispered as I slipped away. I felt her fingertips upon my elbow, turning me back.

"Why did you go outside?" I asked, preventing her from continuing, wishing as I did so that my heart would just stop.

Chastened, she averted her eyes and crossed her arms, disappointment upon her visage. "Because when they left I was worried for you. I wanted to make certain they weren't lying in wait like some sort of trap. And when they'd gone…gone for certain, I thought it wise to get some food for dinner so we didn't have to go out _again_. I...thought I'd try my hand at cooking." She paused for a moment, and I could see behind her attempt at a smile unease. "But there was something else...something…something worrisome."

"I can hardly think of anything more _worrisome_ than what has just transpired here. Like I said, pack your things...we're leaving."

"But I felt something." She blurted.

From the window a wan draft caught the side of my face. Attempting to divine her meaning, I puzzled. "We can talk about that when we're out of here, Elizabeth. But for now..."

"No, Booker. This is _important_." She took a step toward me, wringing her hands in frustration. "I mean, it was like I felt in _Columbia_." Unconsciously I noticed her babying her insulted finger.


	3. East River

**3\. East River** **(** **watch?v=kxkwh4aELO8 )**

"A tear. And you're telling me just to trust you and let you follow your feelings?" As the ferry ploughed up the East River the water roiled beneath us, the breeze off it catching my face and hair making me feel like a bird in flight. I'd never been on a boat before, at least one that moved through water, and though it was a bit daunting to be so far from land the coolness was wonderful. In the frilly white blouse and leaden skirt, it had been so very hot.

Behind us the big suspension bridge Booker had called the Brooklyn was slowly receding, a leviathan of dark beige stone and blocky yet elegant towers that looked so very much like the one that had once tied Emporia to Felling Island. With a smile upon my face I glanced over to him from the bow railing, seeing Booker looking back over his shoulder, brown hair ruffling in the wind. I knew he was worried. "Do you really think we're being followed?" I said, pressing up against him.

"That's why we took the boat, Elizabeth. It's easier to get lost in the crowd." He'd turned back now, eyes steadfast ahead with the look of eagles. He was a little rough and poorly shaven, but somehow that only made him more appealing.

When first I'd met him it hadn't been from the best vantage, my would-be rescuer hanging from the railing of my library as the ceiling fell in. All I'd known of him were those blue eyes and in them the fear his grip would fail. Which it had. Yet after my own shock had subsided I'd seen him there, helpless upon my smashed coffee table, looking up at me with outstretched hand and wincing at the next tome I was preparing to hurl his way. Like now his hair was tossed, eyes squinted…his rugged face turned away in a grimace. For the life of me, he looked like Rodin's _Thinker_ brought to life _._ And now I was here with him, just us alone upon the prow of this big brown fish plying the river. "Yes. I know it's utter insanity, but I _swear_ I can feel it...them, the tears. Just like back in Columbia." I nuzzled into him further, looked up into his eyes with palm upon his chest.

"Columbia doesn't exist." He answered, pursing his lips. "And you're imagining things."

"Booker...look around..." I whispered, glancing to the palisades of faded red brick and wood that leapt vertical near the water's edge. "Columbia is all _about_ us! What is this if not an echo?"

His gaze drifted downward to mine, settling upon my silvered nub. "It's just a city Elizabeth, and thank God your tearing days are over. I _never_ want to go back there."

"Never is a long time." I muttered, enjoying despite his surly mood the comfort of our happenstance embrace. "Speaking of never, you never told me how old you were, you know." I was prying again, of course, and I knew the whole 'South of forty, north of you,' smugness he'd thought so amusing.

"I was told I was born in 1874, Elizabeth." He said after a considered moment. "April 19th, if you want to bake me a cake. I guess that makes me thirty eight, not that I've been keeping count."

"Where?" I asked and again he sighed.

"Out west, not far from where I joined up with the Army."

"It seems like a long way to end up here."

"I was running away." He said quietly, a distance upon his face. "I guess I'm good at that."

Ahead another bridge loomed, this one of gray steel with streetcars running the rails on its south side. Somehow it wasn't as pretty as the last. As we passed into its shadow and lost the sunlight it was palpably chill. "That's the Manhattan Bridge." Booker said, looking up with me, surveying afterward the broad waters, the next bridge and docks a mile beyond it. "And the next one, the one with the two decks, that's the East River Bridge. The Long Island City Station is just up there beyond it. We'll catch a train there."

"You mean like the El?" I answered excitedly, craning my head to see a huddle of pigeons high upon the Manhattan's pier, doing what, err, pigeons do. Above them beyond the bridge deck and a clanging trolley headed toward the island an airship emerged, gleaming in the daytime brilliance. "Why not take an airship like back in Columbia?"

Booker chuckled. "Like that worked out so well. Besides, do you have any idea of how much passage on those things costs? Unless you're going to Chicago, it's not worth it."

"What about _Paris_?" I asked softly and turned his unshaven cheek to meet my enthusiasm.

He tried, but couldn't suppress a grin and wrinkle about his eyes. "Paris might work."

With my finger still aching, I looked out across the rippling water toward the approaching bank and buildings atop it. Behind us the Captain blew the _Staten Island's_ horn and I jumped, covering my ears. Booker broke out in a big smile and laughed. I looked up at him unamused and smacked him on the shoulder. Apparently I wasn't very discrete in babying my finger. "So, is that how you, uh, know?"

"Know?"

"Where we're going." He asked, glancing at my finger.

I nodded, and even as I rubbed it I knew it wouldn't let up. "In Columbia there were so many tears…"

"Caused by you."

I ignored his smile and kept talking. "That I supposed I was just numb to them all, but here…it's like being in a crowd your whole life where everyone is always talking and then suddenly no one. Nothing. So…so peaceful. And then...then you hear something, faint...but definitely _something_. You know, at first it was quite bothersome, and even though I miss it…tears…I guess I've gotten used to it. Then this morning…I felt…felt this."

"And you can tell the direction?"

Again I nodded, looking ahead to the next bridge and the city's blocky red skyline beyond it. I looked eastward to this new, oncoming wonder. "It's out there."

After ten minutes the ferry came into a short dock, churning water, engines thrown into reverse and turning the gray water into a caramel froth. With a surge of power the Captain brought the vessel to a halt, deckhands throwing lines and wrapping rope about bits on the berth. A chill ran my spine.

"What's the matter?" I heard Booker ask…felt his hand warm upon my shoulder. With the boat at berth there was no more wind, and though it was still coolish upon the water the sun was something else. "Maybe you need a hat?"

"I was just thinking back to when Cade's airship brought us into to Finkton. Remembering the Vox. All that happened afterward."

"Yeah…" He said, free hand upon the railing, looking more through it than at the activity below. "I know." As the hands secured their ropes below us the gates opened.

At their parting a throng of top-hatted businessmen, sprinkled here and there with the odd lady coursed up the boarding ramp, passing through turnstiles and onto terra firma. Booker led us down the ferry's stairs to join the wake of the mob, taking our place behind a cluster of working men in faded blue dungarees and garble of questionable language. Being early afternoon, I can only suppose the crowd was light though it didn't feel it. Soon we were up the ramp and off the water ourselves, and I had the oddest feeling as if my knees had turned to rubber.

Seeing me all wobbly, Booker pointed down the street to a brick building, a waiting train and boarding passengers. "That's the Long Island Station up there."

"The railroad?" I asked, brushing my hair back as we ascended the bank to join the avenue.

"Mhmmm. And you're sure this is the way?"

"Well, if I could still see the _doors,_ I would be."

Booker took my hand as we slipped the curb onto brick. "Well, it's just as well you can't. We had to pick a direction to run, and this is just as good as any…let's just hope we find some answers."

When we got there I found Long Island Station hardly a 'station,' rather more of a feed lot with a half dozen rail heads backed up to it. Upon the tracks the lone train we'd seen stood, cars brown and drab, a lone cylindrical steam engine puffing gray smoke at its front. Though the crowd was sparse it was still more than a girl not used to crowds could handle, particularly since I found myself struggling to see above shoulders and hats. Feeling ill at ease, I kept close to Booker's side as he purchased our tickets at a rather unremarkable window next to the yard, remembering when we'd done the same in a place that had never existed. With bags in hand, we were soon boarding.

"Don't tell me…" Booker said as we surmounted the steel steps of the car. As we entered, my eyes darted left and right at the open seats in the aisle before us. "You've never ridden a train before?"

My chaperone had a taciturn way of approaching the world that I didn't share. It must have been a hard life to make a man so jaded when wonder was all about him. "How could you tell?" I asked, shoving my bag in an overhead rack before choosing a window seat. Out the glass I found myself fixated, looking at the people milling and the nearby buildings.

"Because I've never seen anyone smile at Brooklyn."

Outside I heard a whistle, followed by loud a whoosh and cloud of white steam billowing outward. Our train began to pull out, the people who'd only just departed falling behind. I couldn't help my excitement, for the promise of something new was unfolding. "I don't see how you can say that, Booker…it's all so rich and all of the colors and people! It's exciting!" Booker sighed but seemed to smile, and as I sat back into the seat across from him he lingered upon me. "What is it?" I asked.

"You." He said with a grin. "What am I going to do with you?"

I stood and turned, joining his side so I could look forward. "Hopefully have a grand adventure." The fact that it put me in an ideal position to lend my head to his shoulder was an added benefit.

As the train picked speed we left the yard behind, and only then I began to understand the full enormity of the city. It was, I suppose, more difficult to gain a true understanding of a place from the ground. In Columbia I'd been spoiled. Seeing a city from the sky made it easy to understand in a relatable manner...at least until Booker had freed me. What had looked like a mere stage before, a toy, had then taken on depth that I'd never suspected…and malice. Now, with the brick and stonework and shanties passing by, I found this part of New York much the same, its assortment of architecture bewildering.

Roads came and went, the train rolling over bridges with cars and trucks and horse drawn wagons beneath, punctuated every now and then by great billboards and painted advertisements across whole facades that advertised soap with the most scandalously clad women. Everywhere on the rooftops there were wooden water towers and chimneys, the latter, more often than not, accompanied by plumes of dark smoke.

"So, why do they call it 'Long Island?" I eventually asked, surveying a tenement with an array of colorful clothing lines and even more colorful people who hadn't the good sense to smile. "It doesn't look like much of an island…it looks like Manhattan."

"Well, this is _Queens_ , and yes, it's part of New York but is actually on a big island that extends maybe a hundred or more miles east. _Long_ Island, in fact. Whatever you're feeling…" Gently he held my hand in his, eyeing my thimble before eyes turned our way. "It's likely out _there_. Unless, of course, it's farther. Mind you, the nearest land beyond Montauk is Ireland…and that's three thousand miles away."

"Three thousand miles?!" I exclaimed. "Oh, it's closer than that. Shamrocks?"

"Shamrocks?" Booker puzzled.

"Ireland. They have shamrocks there." I said. "Very green."

As the train gathered speed a plume of soot billowed above us from the engine, coming every now and then into the car. Against the roiling pollution Booker rose and drew the window up before rejoining me in our seat. It cut off the smoke but also our air. Having been through a lot, the both of us were quiet, which was all right. I had so much to see. After a few minutes I heard him snuffle. After a few more I heard him snore.

Settling upon his chest, I watched the world going by out the glass, the brick edifices and wall murals and clotheslines giving way to houses then fields and tree line with cloudless azure above. Cars and horse drawn carts plied roads both dirt and paved, while long lines of cable were strung on wooden poles at roadside. The further out we got, the more trees and fields there were until we were running through forest.

I'd never seen forest before, seen how birds took to the branches waving in the breeze above, seen how the leaves turned and flashed in the sunlight. I imagined sitting beneath one of those trees in a field, reading a book as the clouds drifted overhead. It was beautiful, and as I lay there, cheek upon his chest, I realized that despite our predicament how perfectly happy I was.

#

When I came to the sun was a bit further west, the shadows along the tracks a bit longer. Elizabeth's brown softness was at my chin. Silently she was gazing out the window, perking occasionally to take in a bridge or stream or passing train. Everything was new to her. So wide eyed and young. Annabelle had been like that once.

We'd begun courting shortly before I was off to knock sense into the Lakota and for some reason she'd remained intent upon marriage even after I returned. I'd been a changed man, of course…hardly a man. A boy. A boy who'd seen too much. _Done_ too much. Hard as I tried to shake it, it ate away at me, and even though I couldn't bring myself to talk about it, she'd still loved me.

Andy had said she was simply anxious to get away from her father and move back east, which, of course, I'd made my intentions known to do as soon as I could. By then I was sick of the Army, and being young as she it was easy to think that a change of scenery or dunk in the water might wash away one's sins. Not that anyone at Riley thought what we'd done was wrong…it had been a fight at Wounded Knee, after all.

But none of them had done what I'd done.

Sans her father's blessing, we'd gotten married one Saturday at the First United Methodist in Manhattan, a little town a few miles east of Riley, then hopped a train east across the prairie. With my mind elsewhere, I'd not much been in mind to elope, but it had been _her_ wish and I'd made it come true at the cost of most of my savings. That train hadn't been unlike this one, passing over the open plains of rolling grass and the Mississippi and the forested farmland of Illinois and Ohio. When we'd finally made New York, Annabelle was in heaven. I can still see her face when first we saw the Hudson, that glint of silver down the emerald valley, Annabelle turning back to me in glee, brown hair glistening gold in the sun about those beautiful blue eyes. We were paupers, but those eyes, how they'd gleamed. At least until we settled in to 108 Bowery. Then, one morning, laying there together in a bed barely big enough for both of us, having not eaten in two days, she'd told me that she was pregnant.

"What is it?" Annabelle whispered. I felt her fingertips upon my face and realized it was Elizabeth. She'd turned up to me, her smallish nose and eyes so much her mother's. The same subtle chin…dark eyebrows and lashes raised in concern.

"Nothing, really. Why?" Her fingernail traced an unsuspected tear and caught it up in golden sunlight. She just looked at me, not poisoning the moment with words. After clearing my throat I managed to speak. "I…I was thinking about your mother."

"You must have loved her very much." She whispered, her own blue dwelling on my weakness. "I don't ever think I've seen you cry, well, except when Witting…" A stern look chastened her. "It's all right to cry, you know."

"I wasn't crying."

She smirked and hugged me. "You like to act so tough don't you, Booker DeWitt? Remember, I _know_ you."

"Yes." I relented. "You do. I loved her...more than you could possibly imagine."

"I can imagine quite a bit." She said, eyes not varying from mine. "It's all I had for most of my life. Tell me about her." Looking at Elizabeth, there again I felt the weight of the world upon my shoulders. God, the world had no justice to letting this happen. And I couldn't do this to her. Not _again_. I took her hand and began to speak, but before I could her eyes widened. How did she know? "No, please, Booker," She whispered. "… _don't._ Please don't _spoil_ it."

"Elizabeth…we can't." Gently I pushed her away. "We cannot do this. You know how...how I feel about you, but I…I'm your _Father_. I wish it were different but it just _isn't_ and it _never_ will be _._ I will not hurt you again."

"You're _not_ hurting me…" She whispered, distress written upon her troubled brow. Her lip quivered as if somehow her heartstrings would change fate. "But you're about to."

"You'll find someone." I whispered. "Someone else." I said bitterly, turning away. "Someone younger and...more handsome and...and he'll love you more than life itself. There are lots of fish in the sea, especially for a girl like you."

"I don't _want_ someone else." She said with a solemn look, face turned down, voice low. "It's all so terribly unfair…I can't help the way that I feel."

"No, we can't. But we _can_ help how we act. You have to know…know that I..." I paused, remembering the girl so damned much like her. "We can't be that for one another. We have to…have to find someone else."

She looked up toward me sharply, eyes intent. "And what if there _were_ a way? Would you…would you take it? No...no matter _what_ the cost?"

I know what my eyes must have said, for we sat there gazing upon one another for far too long. I closed them, telling myself _no_ again and loosed a dejected sigh. "There _is_ no way."

From her cheek she wiped something and drew away, turning, holding herself tightly in the seat beside me. Her eyes drew outside and the foliage flashed by. Eventually I heard her whisper, "I know."

#

Jamaica, Mineola, Hicksville…the towns rolled by in our mutual silence as the train chugged along, tracks clattering beneath us, not looking at one another until she gave me a sorrowful, pathetic glance and with a sniff barely audible put her cheek back upon my chest. She lay there, eyes open, thinking as town and dale slipped by, the train pouring on, stopping intermittently with squealing air brakes to disembark passengers. At one point I could feel her holding onto me for what seemed like dear life. "It's not like we'll be apart." I whispered, soaking in this girl who wanted nothing more than to be with me. "I'll always be here for you."

"Promise?" She asked quietly, and in that soft question I found all the purpose in the world.

"Yes. And if you need me, I will _always_ come." Into my shoulder I felt her nuzzle.

We carried on for a while after that, less thinking I suspect than simply enjoying our communion. I was wondering if we'd need to charter a boat when she finally sat up, almost like she'd been shocked. Her eyelashes fluttered and she turned to me. "Booker!"

"What?" I said, the beginnings of hunger pangs signaling that dinner approached.

"We're close!" We were ten minutes past Medford and the car mostly emptied. She started looking around, her eyes settling across the car. "There! It's north!"

"Damn." I muttered. "You're like a bloodhound."

"That's not a very flattering comparison." She said, brushing her hair away and evincing a pout.

"Okay, a bloodhound puppy. Better?"

"Marginally." She said. I heard the whistle blow and the brakes coming on. In her excitement she'd risen prematurely and the sudden slowing unsteadied her. She fell into my lap. Disconcerted, she looked out the windows toward the arriving station on our left, down at her finger and back to me, mischief in mind. Had she missed her tears so damned much? Her eyes narrowed, and with a furtive glance right and left pecked me on the cheek and grabbed my hand. "Come on…it's this way!"

Elizabeth had obviously forgotten her porter needed to grab the bags, and as she tore out of the car, nearly wrenching my arm from my socket, I reached up with my free arm to retain them. Hastening down the steps and foot stool past the bemused Conductor, she glanced up and around, letting go of my hand to twirl upon the platform. "Oh, it's outside and so green!" She said, looking about at the tree line and ploughed fields about the station. She closed her eyes and stopped, drawing in a deep breath. "Oh, and the air, it's so…so."

"Fresh." I supplied, thinking it smelled a little of New York all the same. Above her the station sign read black letters upon white. "Yaphank." What kind of a name was "Yaphank?"

Still just a bit overwhelmed, Elizabeth had taken to the edge of the platform and was craning about. It wasn't a bad station, I suppose, and though barely more than a hutch worn by the elements it had a wooden gingerbread trim about its eaves that made it seem rather homey. The couple who'd disembarked with us were following her antics like she was mad, descending a ramp with eyes turned over shoulders before nearly colliding with their waiting chauffer and his 1911 Perry Pathfinder. The coincidence was not lost upon me.

Elizabeth came prancing up to me, holding her finger. I couldn't tell if she wanted to tell me something or she was going to pee. "Well?"

Dragging me down the ramp and around a rather antique four wheeled baggage cart and onto the sandy dirt parking lot, she pointed along the road and looming tree line to the north. "It's there, Booker! Somewhere up the road! Ooooh, I can feel it." In the afternoon sun some clouds had arrived and it was still warm. A fly flew past me, buzzed her and she waved it away.

I looked down the dirt path, wincing. By now the Pathfinder was leaving a billow that rose and rolled in the wan afternoon zephyr. "I think we have a problem." I said.

"What's that?" She answered, brushing fallen hair from her face. From the surrounding brush and fields crickets sang a lazy song about us.

I looked about the barren lot and miles of field about us. "How up for are you walking?"


	4. Yaphank

**4\. Yaphank**

The afternoon heat was still on when we set out, the orange ball of the sun westering but still beating down. Beside me Elizabeth had lost of a bit of her enthusiasm and I could see perspiration dampening her mood. We didn't have much but that was okay. Anna's jewelry box wasn't a burden.

The station attendant had eyed us as we departed, Elizabeth walking alongside me across the lot and onto what passed for a 'street' out here, little more than an overbilled cattle track. Up ahead it passed through a few questionable buildings.

Yaphank.

 _Yak yank_ , I kept thinking to myself as we trod opposite sides of the dirt road, wondering if it were Pequot or Iroquois or some other language. It certainly wasn't Sioux. As we walked, Elizabeth skimmed the tall grass alongside the road with the palm of her hand, drawing a stare from a woman sweeping her porch at one of those nearby farmhouses. When I returned the compliment, luggage awkward over my shoulder, she turned and went inside.

Stopping amid that clutch of homes, I sighed. "How far?"

Elizabeth turned to me from where she's been inspecting the grass, wiping her brow with back of hand against the blazing sun. She looked north and squinted. "I don't know. I only feel it up _that_ way."

"You realize that 'up _that_ way' could be miles, don't you? How did you like walking Columbia?"

"It wasn't pleasant." She answered, negotiating the rutted dirt road with boots and skirt held up at her sides. I'd never understood how women survived in such clothes even under more domestic conditions.

Faced with little choice we continued onward, passed occasionally by an auto that covered us in dust until from behind a wagon came rumbling, the driver reining his twin draft horses with a pull of leather. "Good afternoon, Lady and Gentleman. Mind me asking what ye be walking Yaphank Avenue in the heat of the day? I could not help but see you've been passed by a few of those infernal automobiles...might get hit by one and that wouldn't be good fer ya."

Surveying his conveyance I saw it to be a grey painted Swab wagon, back filled with two rolls of freshly bailed hay. The driver himself he was middle aged, perhaps older than me or at least more sunned, for white his skin had assumed a leather like propensity. Atop his lean, clean-shaven face he wore a wicker hat, green eyes below it taking us in. A slender spire of yellow grass protruded from the corner of his mouth.

"Thank you kindly for your concern." I replied, hefting the bags anew. Beside me Elizabeth was rubbing the top shin of her black leather boot. "You wouldn't know where we might obtain room and board, would you?"

"Well, up in town you might, just a quarter mile ahead or so." Amid the three of us silence ensued, punctuated by the song of crickets and rustle of grass and leaves. "Would you be favoring a ride?" He finally asked.

Elizabeth grinned, and as she clambered on board the open back gate I chuckled. " _Thank_ you. You are a life saver. Might I ask your name?" I set my bags in the back of his wagon and reached out my hand to the man. "Booker DeWitt. And this is my...daughter, Elizabeth."

Taking his reins in the other, he offered me his. "Daniel Topper, Sir. Please, climb aboard."

To the man's credit it was only five minutes before we rolled into town proper. At first I'd thought the place only farmhouses until ahead the road became a dam, a long glimmering lake to its west and discharge running away in the hollow to our east. On the northern side a rather large sawmill commanded the road. "That's the Gerard Mill, there," Daniel said, glancing toward the shingled structure. "And this the Connecticut River. It runs from here to the Atlantic a few miles south, and this here pond is our "Lower Lake." North of the dam we came then to a juncture with an east-west road prominently marked "Main Street."

Elizabeth was preoccupied with a pretty white washed Victorian as we turned left, two stories and square with a cupola at its top, nestled in the western crook of the turn. "That's the Hawkins' House, Miss." Daniel illuminated, and I wondered if it were its resemblance to Columbia's architecture that had piqued her interest. The bulk of the hamlet lay before us along this thoroughfare, like the lake shrouded by overhanging broadleaf trees.

In their shade Elizabeth and I found welcome relief from that unrelenting sun, and with its quaint cottages I decided Yaphank more civilized than I'd given it credit for. As we clattered through downtown the long lake followed just south of the houses, among which I found a blacksmith, dressmaker and a general store. Presently Daniel pulled to a halt before a three way juncture where the road broke west and north. On the west side another mill stood prominently at the head of a smaller dammed pond that trailed off north, while just across from it upon the opposite side of the road a two-story brick boarding house overlooked all. "Well, here we are. Yaphank Common." He wrapped his reins and dismounted, coming about the wagon to offer Elizabeth his services. She glanced to me and I nodded. He helped her down, and as he did so I decided that I was not the only man who fancied her. With ruddy cheeks he thumbed over his shoulder, eyes not bothering to meet mine. "This here is _Willow Lake Inn_. You can get a hot bath and supper for an honest price."

I slipped to the dirt beside them, feet aching, reaching back to grab our meager possessions. About us a few villagers were walking, a trio of boys near the mill also taking in the girl beside me. "Thank you, Mr. Topper." I said and took Elizabeth by the arm. "Could I offer you a few cents for the ride in?"

He smiled and turned to climb back into the driver's seat. "The offer is enough, Mr. DeWitt. I were headed this way anyhow. Enjoy your stay in Yaphank."

The pond was catching the blue of the arching sky as he drove off to the west. With a tired look to one another we mounted the steps to the _Willow's_ overhanging porch, the house a well-made construction with four sets of brown shutters. Down the street a horse neighed and I could see the boys still watching, backs against the mill's wooden wall. A pair of cars sat in the yard, almost out to place in the rustic tranquility. Inside the screen door a rather severe woman in blouse and skirt was setting a table. She turned to look with a look of surprise. "Oh, goodness...guests!"

Elizabeth remained at my side and let me do the talking. "Yes...sorry, I should have knocked. We're uh, travelling, and were hoping to retain a room for the night. Would you happen to have one available, Ma'am?"

After some consideration and obvious counting she set for her China hutch and drew out two more place settings. "I believe I do." With a glance she gestured toward an end table at the door. "They will be seventy five cents each. If you wouldn't mind signing, we keep a guest book. You are lucky that we have two rooms available, one upon the south side and another overlooking the lake. Does the lady have a preference?"

"Lakeside." Elizabeth answered with an eager smile. I grinned and scratched our names in the ledger.

The woman, a thirty something with brown hair that matched Elizabeth's, turned away and fetched a key from her cupboard. "Well, you have a discerning eye, young Miss." She handed me another key.

"We'll be staying together." I said, drawing the woman's raised eyebrow. "She's my daughter."

After even more consideration and a careful look to the both of us, she took it back. "Very well." She glanced at the guestbook. " _Archibald and Evelyn Montgomery_? Might I ask from where you hail?"

"New York City." Elizabeth answered, eyeing me afterward. "We're travelling."

The lady looked at our bags. "Rather lightly I would say." I'm Nora Swezey. My husband Elmont is the proprietor but he's off in Riverhead at the moment. In fact..." She glanced out the door and down the street. "He's due back any time." Again she glanced us over. "I'll show you to your room. Dinner is at 7 P.M. sharp, and tonight we're having beef brisket. I hope that meets your tastes."

From my pouch I produced a Silver Eagle and fished around for the required change, thinking that 'beef brisket' suited my tastes just fine. "I hope this will cover the costs."

Swezey looked queerly at the coins. "I don't rightly think I've seen currency such as these. Are they tender from?"

"Out west in Missouri. Columbia Mint." I pointed to the mark on the coin that said prominently "Columbia". "I assure you, they're fine silver. Government issue."

Her eyes turned to me then my girl, who after a moment of concern approved of my turn of truth with little smirk. "Very well. There is running water in the bath across the hall. Would..." She paused, glancing to our sad, sweat stained persons. "Would you like your clothes washed? It might be a little late to have them fully dry, but we have a bit of sun left."

Looking down upon her dust and hay covered skirt, Elizabeth's nose flared. "That would be nice."

#

Elizabeth had chosen our accommodations well, for the room had an expansive view of the little lake and mill across the street, the one the boarding house apparently took its name after. The sun was clipping the trees that way when she emerged from the bath, fresh in her dressing gown, drying her hair with a plush green towel and prancing across the hallway to our room. Hair down and obviously feeling spry, she walked to our bags. After a fish she found her hairbrush and proceeded to untangle her brown mess. "Did Mrs. Swezey say how long it would take to dry them?" She asked. Even in the long straight white of her gown she cut an appealing figure. I closed my eyes, sighed and stepped across to the bath.

"No. Just get another change of clothes and we'll deal with them in the morning." I closed the door. Not having a great deal of time after Elizabeth's dawdle, I ran the water and shed my garments. From the weeks before my wounds were healing, some better than others. The hand came to mind. As I sat in the tub I felt I could do with never seeing another bullet or gun in my life again. Columbia, I thought, had been a nightmare...even worse than the Philippines, if that was possible. And nothing had been as bad as the P.I.

"So, we're lost." I said through the door. Thin as it was, I figured it would carry.

"No." Elizabeth answered from our chambers, a strain in her voice suggesting a battle. "Just...uhhng...just not quite there yet."

"Well, I have what I want." I said and slipped back into the hot water.

"And what is that?" She asked. I heard a thump and wooden crash.

"Are you all right?" I said slightly louder.

"It's just...my hair. It's got a mind of its own. What did you want?"

I sighed. "To be safe with _you_. If that took leaving New York to do it, so be it. This place is so out in the sticks that neither the Morello clan nor anyone else could ever find it." Nor _him_ , I thought.

"Who else would want to find us?" Came across the hall. I probably paused too long.

"No one. It's just a figure of speech."

"It didn't sound like a figure of speech. Is there something you're not telling me, Booker?"

I was quiet for a moment, deciding after too many worries in solitude that she needed to know. "There was a man, Elizabeth."

"A man?"

I remembered back to McSorley's and the back alley, the mist against the lights and dead Irishmen. "I should have told you this before, I mean I did but…" My thoughts stewed, hazy memories of another alleyway years before…decades. Memories of her…Anna…and a fingertip severed…a child lost. A conversation on a zeppelin on the way up from my massacre at Battleship Bay. "It wasn't the Morellos I was bringing you to."

Now it was her turn at silence. When her voice came, it was with apprehension. "If it wasn't them, then whom?"

"A man." I closed my eyes, taking soap to chest and hair and face. "I thought I told you before, but I doubt you were in any frame of mind to remember. I know you won't believe me, but…but I'd begun to think it was just some crazy dream. I mean, I know it wasn't but…"

"Who?" Her one word question punctuated the swash of water in the tub.

"He called himself Laslowe." I answered, remembering out walk down Bowery. "Said he worked for a powerful man who wanted to see you. It was him who paid my way to Columbia." The memory rang in my head. "After the _Prophet_ and your ensuing strangeness, I'd…I'd thought he was just a trick my mind was playing on me. I thought…" For a moment I stopped talking. "When you stepped out the other day and I panicked, I went to my bookkeeper to try and make things right. When I got there, well, let's say things were a bit tense, which is why we're here. The thing is…"

"What?" Elizabeth finally said.

"He looked like the fellow who took you as a child."

#

I made a concerted effort to clean up which, considering I was a guy, went considerably faster than Elizabeth's campaign. Fresh and clean, I donned my underwear and shirt and emerged. By then Elizabeth was freshly coiffed and drawing a familiar blue skirt on with blue and similarly memorable gold trimmed white blouse. Upon her neck she wore the diving bird pendant. It was an outfit I'd not seen since Columbia...when we first met. "Where did you get _that_?" I asked, trying not to dwell.

She turned to me and pulled her sleeves down. My revelation had obviously preyed upon the girl for her earlier zeal was absent. "I told you that I didn't very much like the stuffy clothes everyone wears here. Columbia was so much more comfortable, at least in style. I found a few dollars and had the Dowling sisters down the street make it."

"You found a few dollars?" I said incredulously. "And they approved of...this?" I took to my own bag, drawing a pair of trousers and sundries. As I began to dress, she turned away. "They thought it was fetching, thank yo. I doubt Mrs. Swezey will see it your way, but if that's your wish..."

"It's all I have." She said. The matter, I supposed, was moot. She was quiet again, worry upon her brow before coming to my side. "Booker, how…how is that even possible? This…this Laslowe sending you to Columbia?" She turned to me with earnest but worried eyes. "Columbia…doesn't exist."

I finished tying my neckerchief. "That's what bothers me."

#

"That was rather smart of you using the Montgomery's names in the ledger. I hope we can keep up the pretense." Elizabeth said as I closed the door. "What...what do you think happened to them, Booker?"

Unlike Laslowe, I _knew_ what had happened to them. The Old Man had told me but she didn't need to know. "I don't know. I suppose they just had to run like everyone else. I'm sure they're fine."

With my lie we headed downstairs together at five 'til seven, and as we alighted upon the polished brown floorboards three guests sat at the table, two placements beside them empty. A man and woman, obviously a couple, were chatting to one another discretely while a young gentleman perhaps a little older than Elizabeth was carrying on with Mrs. Swezey about how much he enjoyed brisket.

As we entered the dining room, the four of them looked our way. Mrs. Swezey spoke. "Mr. and Mrs. Whateley, Mr. Ryan, might I introduce Mr. Archibald Montgomery and his daughter Evelyn. Mister and Miss Montgomery, Mr. Evan Whateley, his wife Gertrude and Mr. Peter Ryan."

"Pleasure to meet you." I said as I attended the table. To my right I drew Elizabeth's chair for her. She slipped in before it, smiled at me over her shoulder, which was all the reward I needed in the world. As she sat, I slid it quietly beneath her before taking my own.

"Lovely evening, isn't it?" Ryan said as I scooted my chair in. Dark haired and young, he had a thin but strong face that seemed to dwell upon Elizabeth. To his left Whateley and his wife were not so blessed, the both of them being overweight with pudgy noses and round visages. It was true, I thought, that over time couples came to resemble one another.

Whateley nodded in agreement. "Indeed. Gertrude and I were just a few minutes ago taking in the evening on the porch. A splendid swing you have out there, Mrs. Swezey. I think we could have spent the entire evening upon it."

As our hostess brought a platter of piping hot biscuits to the table, Ryan continued. "Yes. It's rather peaceful out here. So much different than the city that never sleeps."

"You should hear it during the week." Swezey chuckled. "Elmont's cousin owns the mill across the way. Or perhaps you heard it earlier in the day? It's rather loud and goes for long hours. We only truly get a respite on the weekend."

"Well…" Ryan continued. "One cannot choose from where one's livelihood comes from all the time, can they? I was visiting there earlier with the manager. It seems he has some interest in my company's wares."

"And what concern do you represent, Mr. Ryan?"

"My own in the Bronx, Mr. Whateley. We service all manner of industrial concerns here and parts east with measuring equipment and electrical components. I'd called upon Mr. Swezey earlier this afternoon on my circuit through Suffolk County."

"Any luck?" Mrs. Swezey answered, eyeing her guests as she ported a steaming tray of caramelized beef to the center of the table. All eyes fell upon that main course as she laid it out. Having not eaten for the day, Elizabeth and I were famished and it smelled divine.

"Thankfully, yes." Ryan said with a pointed glance her way. "Now I've three mouths to feed, and to your cousin's misfortune he was in need of some new machination." By then I'd listened enough to the man to discern a faint twist in his pronunciation, a turn of the tongue that had perhaps a Slavic origin. Whatever it was, it was faint and I doubted Elizabeth had even noticed.

"You've a child then, Mr. Ryan?" Elizabeth asked, giving the man an excuse to turn his gaze her way. Though I was from the frontier, even I knew the game. It was inappropriate for a man to gaze overly long upon a young lady unless called for, particularly for a married man. Seeming well-mannered, well attired and having referred to a child, I could only assume Ryan so.

"Yes, a bouncing baby boy back on Washington Street. Just turned a year old but a week ago." He glanced to the couple. "We've great hopes for him. And yourselves?"

"I'm afraid we've no children." Whateley said. We're here visiting friends for the weekend…not nearly so interesting as business."

The chair at the head of the table was vacant, and upon completing her setting Mrs. Swezey stepped behind the one to its right. As she did Mr. Whateley stood, drawing the woman's chair out for her. Looking to her guests and the vacant head of the table, she produced a somewhat grim smile. "Shall we say Grace?" Together we bowed our heads, though I noticed on Ryan's part a faint reticence.

"Our Father who art in Heaven, thanks we give for this meal and the company in which we receive it. Upon these travelers bestow your grace and grant good fortune in business. Thank you for this food, and for your blessed son, Jesus, whose blood was shed for our redemption. Amen."

"Amen." We echoed, a low mumble. At the conclusion Mrs. Swezey began to slice the brisket. One by one we began to pass the other dishes to our right. Potatoes, turnip greens, rolls with butter. As we did so our hostess doled out the meat in thin, savory slice and soon we were eating. For a time we were busy at it, though as appetites became satiated the two men began to talk more. Business was discussed and politics avoided…mostly.

"Have you been keeping up much with the events in Europe?" Ryan asked after a bite and a turn of phrase took the conversation that way. "Beastly thing. It preys upon my mind so what is transpiring there. Cannot people be allowed to decide matters for themselves free of compulsion?"

Whatelely glanced up from his pudding, a dollop in spoon before his lips. "Sorry. I cannot say I have, good Sir. Seems so far away. I mean, after all, there is an ocean between us and what does that have to do with the goings on here on Long Island? Is it that Eisner you refer to?"

Elizabeth and I had been eating in silence, listening to but not particularly engaging in the banter which up until then had concerned Mrs. Swezey, her husband's business dealings in Riverhead and the mundane happenings in Yaphank. For Elizabeth it must have been from strange conversation to stranger. Until late all she'd ever known had been Columbia and very little of that. And all I'd known was the bottle. "For the moment, I suppose…" Ryan responded. "Him and others, but I sense a darker hand at work both in Germany and Hungary…surely a Russian hand."

"My apologies, friend, but I don't seem to know what you refer to." Whateley answered. Elizabeth's eyes had by then become intent, as if she had either a question or something to say. I gave her a look which she promptly ignored.

"The _Bolsheviks_?" Her voice rang across the dinner table and Ryan's eyebrow cocked, turning his gaze again toward us. I'd just finished my own pudding, wiping my lips with napkin. I sighed loudly and placed it upon the now silent table. The message could not have been lost upon her.

"Yes." Ryan answered, smiling with the opportunity to turn his eyes to her. "You know of politics, young lady?"

"Only what I read in the papers." She demurred, reacting to my veiled displeasure.

"You're name again was _Evelyn_?" To me she smiled as if all was forgiven and resumed our mutual deception. The girl would not be reined in by me or anyone else. "A lovely appellation, my Dear. As to your question, I feel it can be no coincidence that the Czar and family are overthrown and murdered by Lenin and Trotsky's ilk, and now the east of Europe is in foment, falling like dominoes under their sway. First Garbai and now Eisner…whose is the hidden hand?"

Elizabeth glanced at me and I sat there dumb. There was a reason I didn't discuss politics in polite company…least of all because I didn't know it. War, however, was a different matter, particularly when ignorance such as Whateley's threatened our undoing. Even in New York I'd heard the whispers, rabble rousers in McSorley's and down on the docks rumbling of "organization." "Reds," they called themselves...bound to even the unfairness of the world by chopping the bourgeoisie down to size. Marx's boys.

 _Fitzroy's_ boys.

"I suppose you have an idea?" Elizabeth asked, catching the feeling that the man enjoyed hearing his own voice. "If the hand leads back to…"

"Russia." He answered. "The hidden hand must be of that gangster _Stalin_ himself, that and this Party he's 'inherited.' It is no great secret who was responsible for his comrades' demise, for he is a murderer without compare and has his sights set upon the whole world."

"To what end?" Whateley asked.

"Why, to drown it in flame and remake it anew in their so-called 'egalitarian' image. With himself as supreme, of course. And they seem to be succeeding now, what with France on edge and Germany tearing itself apart. Bismarck would roll in his grave…a perfect dagger applied to open old agonies between the Protestant north and the Catholic states."

"I worry sometimes that with his Progressivism Roosevelt leans toward those Reds." Mrs. Swezey opined. Dabbing her lips with similar green napkin to mine, she lay it upon the table. I trust you have all enjoyed Dinner?" Her polite change of the subject did not go unnoticed.

"Oh, yes, very much so." Mrs. Whateley said…some of the few words I'd heard from her the evening. "The brisket was lovely as could be." Shortly her husband and Ryan concurred. "If you don't mind now…" Whateley's wife continued. "I would like Evan to indulge us in an evening walk."

Her husband turned to her with a nod and pleasant acquiescence. "Why, that is a splendid idea." I couldn't help but suspect if he, like his wife, were nonplussed by the gravity of subject.

"You should enjoy it." Mrs. Swezey approved. "It's well enough after dusk that the mosquitoes ought not to be such a bother. And do look for the lights. They've been particularly brilliant that last few nights."

"The _Lights_?" Elizabeth said with girlish curiosity, crystallizing the puzzlement I'd felt at the woman's cryptic remark.

For a moment Swezey seemed to take pause, glancing toward her husband's empty chair before attending our question. "Yes. If you look to the north from the mill at lakeside you shall be treated to the most marvelous show. I do wish Elmont were here, for in his travels up north he has become quite familiar with them. Even from here though they are most brilliant, like heat lightning, though pressed into shimmering sashes of red and blue that shoot up into the sky like painted strokes."

"Shoot up into the sky?" I heard myself ask, the image striking itself into my head, somehow uncannily familiar. "And you say to the _north_?"

Swezey nodded. "Yes. We've taken to calling them the Wardenclyffe Lights."

A handful of locals had gathered in the street by the Common as Elizabeth and I descended the Willow's wooden steps, walking hand in hand across the corner that served as a car park and over toward the mill. It was perhaps an hour after sunset and the sky had grown dark, any traces of cloud from the afternoon long since vanished. At the lake the trees were far away and there was no moon, leaving an infinitely black swath of sky to look upon, speckled by brilliant sparks of white diamond. Thankfully our hostess had been correct about the bugs. With the sun down and having had no rain for days, the evening was dry and cool.

"Booker…" Elizabeth whispered as we came to a stop. Beyond the murmur of stargazers I heard a chorus of frogs down waterside, along with the ubiquitous crickets. Before she could continue a wave of awe washed her face and a murmur rose from the dozen or so looking out over the lake's star-twinkled waters. Following her gaze, I looked up to see a streak of emerald shimmering ephemerally across the sky, like a rainbow but monotone. Then a red and what I thought to be a blue. For a moment they seemed to entwine before fading silently away.

" _Ohhhh!_ " Elizabeth said, palm rising to cover her mouth. She turned and beamed at me, draping her arms about mine. "They're _lovely_." The stars had been bright, but her eyes gleamed brighter.

Dammit, I'd seen this before. "Is _that_ what we're looking for?"

She glanced to her deformity and held it up, a frown troubling her face as the thimble's silver caught the light from the mill's porch. "No, I…I don't think so." She said. "I don't even feel my finger anymore. Don't you think they're like the Northern Lights? I used to see them all the time from my tower. I could look at them for hours."

"If those aren't the tear you felt, then what use are they?" Even as I spoke my words rang hollow. This meant something.

Her smile had returned briefly only to fade. "Don't you ever feel _romantic_ , Booker DeWitt? I've waited my whole life for a moment like this. It's so peaceful and quiet here…so beautiful." She put her head upon my chest. "And we're together and I l..." She stopped before saying it. " _Please_ don't spoil it."

After a moment I softened. She was looking up at me and me down at her, the pair of us for once in silent rapport. I smiled softly and brushed a lock of hair from her eyes.

"Quite a show, eh?" I heard a voice beside us say. Though it was 'downtown,' the streetlights in Yaphank were dim, making it difficult to see the personage speaking to us. After a moment he approached, and I could barely make out Peter Ryan.

"Yes, they're splendid." Elizabeth repeated before pulling away. Then her face lit up anew. "Oh!" She exclaimed, clasping her hands in glee before pointing. "There goes another one!"

Ryan watched her intently, much as he'd done in the parlor when given the opportunity. "Mr. _Ryan_ , is it?" I said.

"Mr. Montgomery." He touched the tip of his Bowler hat. "Miss Evelyn. You look enchanting tonight. And such a fetching dress." Elizabeth smiled at him demurely and for a moment I didn't like it.

"Say, any idea of what these 'Wardenclyffe Lights are?' I managed, looking north along the split and receding tree line to either side of the road from which they seemed to rise. By now Elizabeth had turned back. I remembered when I'd thought I'd lost her until I'd found her alive in Comstock's laboratory. I wanted to tell her how I felt then...show her how I felt. A fatherly hug sufficed.

"Well, yes, I suppose. I've been plying this circuit for a few years and the 'Lights' have always been a part of that. Been going on for a couple of years at least."

"That doesn't exactly tell me what they are. They're not ghosts, are they?"

"Ghosts?" Ryan chuckled, eyes hanging upon Elizabeth. "You must be superstitious to believe that."

"I don't."

At my retort he composed himself. "Well, I am reasonably certain that as their name implies, they originate from Wardenclyffe."

" _Wardenclyffe_?" I repeated. Between us Elizabeth looked to me then to him.

"The town. A small seaside resort started by a banker, I believe from Ohio, a dozen or more years ago, though now it is more known as Shoreham. I visit there upon occasion selling my wares. In fact, I'm going there tomorrow before heading on to Setauket."

" _Are_ you?" Elizabeth asked, eyes catching mine in that devilish way she had when her intellect was firing on all six cylinders. "You sell to the town?"

"The town, no." He smirked.

"If not the town, then to whom?"

"Well, to Wardenclyffe, the _laboratory_ , that is. Which is where I assume these ghostly shows originate."

" _Laboratory_?" Elizabeth and I said together. For a moment her eyes caught mine anew and she grinned. "There's a _laboratory_ there?"

"Of course." He said. "Perhaps it isn't common knowledge here in the sticks, but up there everyone knows about it. It belongs to Nikola Tesla."

"Tesla? You say you're driving up there tomorrow?" Elizabeth asked.

Ryan cocked an eyebrow in curiosity. "I am."

With a glance toward me Elizabeth grinned. "You wouldn't have room for two passengers, would you?"

#

Neither of us spoke much afterward, though Ryan went on about his dealings with this laboratory and the rumors of mischief there. The lightshow continued for another good hour before trailing off, and alongside the villagers we retired to our room. As we mounted the stairs Elizabeth kept looking at me, obviously picking up on my mood.

"I told you so." She announced as we entered our room, pulling back in self-satisfaction. Turning her head upturned nose, and hand extended low back tom me, she announced, "Kiss the thimble."

"We're not going with him." I dismissed.

She turned back to me hurt, cradling her appendage. "Booker."

"Look, I can't help but worry. What good does it do us to chase this? We're _happy_. The Morellos aren't here. _Laslowe_ isn't here. We should keep it that way."

"Booker…" She said, turning to me, glancing at her finger. "If you'd been able to see red your whole life and then suddenly, without warning, apples were all gray. How would you feel? Or...or what if you could _never_ see the sun the same way again, or see the color of the sky at sunset? Or what…" She turned and walked to the screen at the window. "What if you had run through fields your _whole_ life and suddenly, without warning, you were in a wheelchair? And then, somehow, _someone_ showed you that you might be able to walk again? Or see _apples_ again?"

There was such longing on her face, but I could only worry that one should be careful what they wished for. "I had to do it, Elizabeth. I had to, to save us. Would you have it any other way?"

She walked and sat upon the side of the bed, hands upon her lap and mired in introspection. "No. Of course not." She looked up to me. "But…if you saw a flash of red, got to stand again even for a moment…wouldn't you be even a bit curious? Something is going on and we need to understand it."

"No, we don't." I sighed, taking off my vest and shirt. "Let's go to bed."


	5. The Middle Road

**5\. The Middle Road - **Tuesday, July 30th, 1912****

As the night deepened I found myself restless, unable to sleep and oddly missing the sound of automobiles. Missing the whinny of horses…the little noises of a city I'd never heard before, so different than the restless wind outside a lonely tower. Upon our return they'd certainly not been a comfort to unaccustomed ears, yet as the days had passed in his presence they'd somehow come to soothe me. They were the sounds of _people_ and reminded me that I would never be alone again.

Yet now I was.

For the first time since our return I felt distant from this man beside me. Unable to sleep, I slipped from the bed in my dressing gown, rising without waking him, looking upon his face in the faint light from outside then turning away. Wishing I could put troubling thoughts to rest, I stepped out from the room for the bath. I'd only closed the door behind myself when Peter Ryan's door opened and he emerged down the hall.

"Oh, so sorry." He said in barely a whisper, obviously not anticipating the presence of another in the lateness of the hour. "I...didn't expect to find anyone up at this hour."

"Neither…neither did I." I answered, pulling unconsciously the white of my dressing gown about myself. "I was just attending the bath."

"Likewise." He said. "But I am in no hurry, Miss. Please, do go ahead."

I smiled abashedly and entered, taking care of matters before emerging after an obligatory wash of hands. With an awkward exchange of smiles we traded places in the narrow hall. Unable to go back to sleep, I'd found myself sitting upon the sill of the screened hallway window looking outside, listening to that insect chorus.

"So…" He said, emerging from the lavatory with the swish of water behind him. "You and your Father are interested in Shoreham? Are you perhaps considering settlement there? Pardon my observation, but I could not help but notice after your father's request that you might have fallen upon hard times."

"Is it so obvious?" I questioned, though somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I likely should not have. "I am afraid we have."

"I am sorry to hear that. And widowed, I suppose?"

I paused before I spoke, realizing that I was not particularly comfortable speaking to men. Or women, for that matter. "Some years ago. I am his only child. We were hoping to impose on family here, but have found them no longer present." He was smiling at me and I felt most guilty at the lie.

"I am sorry to hear that. Perhaps Shoreham would offer a better chance? It is a pretty community."

"And what about yourself, Mr. Ryan?" Like Booker this unfamiliar man was attractive though darker haired; leaner...tall with a narrow face and brooding blue eyes.

"About what?" He answered, his gaze unswerving from mine.

"Your family. You'd mentioned you have a child? I hope that you are not a widower also."

"Oh…" He said, that smile upon his face perhaps lessening. "No. A widower I am _not_. My wife is simply too burdened to travel with me, what with our little boy and all."

"I do appreciate you offering us a lift." I managed awkwardly. For a moment it was quiet and the only sound was the crickets.

"If you are meaning to return to your chamber, please, do not let me delay you."

He was looking at me and me him. I half looked over my shoulder. "It's no delay. I found myself unable to sleep."

"Perhaps a walk then?

Save for the foray to the market, I'd not been anywhere without Booker...so it was both unnerving and invigorating to have such and invitation. "As long…as long as it is short."

Together we descended the stair to the foyer, treading upon its wooden floorboards before exiting through the unlocked front doors. It was cool outside, and save for the lone street lamp, dark. I was in my slippers and so felt every crevasse of the porch. At the side hung a swing wide enough for perhaps two. Mr. Ryan smiled and with an uncomplicated flourish of hand offered me a seat. "Fancy a swing?" Faintly and uncertainly I smiled and sat, brushing the nightgown's white linen beneath my thighs. After a moment he accompanied me. I'd never sat upon a swing before, and was both amused and disconcerted when with his feet he began to move us. I'm sure my eyes opened wide before I looked him, and being unable to suppress it giggled. "What is so amusing?"

"I...I've never been on one of these before." I could only say.

"Never been on a swing before?" He chuckled though not cruelly. "Not even with your Father? Might I ask how old you are, Evelyn?" I was too busy with the sensation of my body moving out of time to realize he was talking to me. "Evelyn?"

"Sorry?" I finally said, looking up.

"How old are you?" His eyes were intent upon mine now, and with both the swing and his gaze I had yet to grow accustomed to the sensation. "Nineteen, I believe. Perhaps twenty. I've never really asked."

"You don't know your own birthday? How is that even possible?" He chuckled in amazement. "Neglect I tell you, and perhaps abuse!"

After a moment I realized he was kidding me, which ameliorated the embarrassment slightly. Yet in truth I _didn't_ know, though surely my father did, and I realized suddenly how strange it was to think of Booker as that…and that I didn't want to.

"No. It…it has never come up."

"Evelyn..." He said quietly, those eyes narrowing in both puzzlement and intent as he took my hand. I felt my heart increase. "I realize you've been perhaps lacking for things, but before you moved away from Missouri...did you have a suitor? A fiancée, perhaps?"

I'd only read those words in romances. "Mr. Ryan, I..." I paused, for his eyes were unwavering and his movement ever subtly closer. "I must confess I have not."

"Good." He said and caressed my shoulder, moving after a bare moment to kiss me.

I had been raised in a tower but knew married men should not dally with unattached women. Realizing what was about to transpire, I drew back and turned my face away. With my eyes closed, he was enough of a gentleman that he stopped, and together we sat there in awkward silence, just us and the crickets. It was my fault, I decided, for not having had a girlhood where I'd have learned the method to anticipate and forestall such happenings. "I...I'm sorry if I've given you false impressions, Mr. Ryan. It was not my intent to in any way lead you on. Please...please accept my apologies."

" _Your_ apologies?" He said, taking my hand. He raised it and applied to its back a gentle kiss. " _My_ apologies. It is just that I've learned that a man's lot in life is to seek out and pursue what he finds desirable. He is limited only by his ambition."

"But...your wife..."

Now it was his turn to sigh...to look away. "And, perhaps, other things. Marriage, Evelyn, is not all that it is made out to be. I hope that someday you do not find that out."

I thought about it for longer perhaps than I should have, finding myself for vaguely comprehensible reasons sorry for the man. "Mr. Ryan..." I finally said. "I had hoped for a continuation of our earlier company, but perhaps…perhaps I should retire...before my father misses me."

#

Being on the western side of Mrs. Swezey's home, the coming of dawn wasn't disruptive. No sunbeams danced the wall nor warmed my face. In fact it remained cool enough to redouble the blankets despite the light. Elizabeth was still at my side as the sun rose

I'd been awake for a while by then, thinking of the previous night, worried stiff over what I feared to be unfolding. For some reason during the night Elizabeth had returned to bed and pressed particularly close, insisting silently that I hold her. When I'd realized she was troubled I'd opened my eyes, wondering if she too had been back to Columbia in her dreams. Now with morning at hand I placed her wrist gently upon her chest and sat, hanging over the side of the bed, forearms draped over my thighs.

What the hell I was going to do?

I didn't recollect much from what had happened after Columbia, but I distinctly remembered her putting me beneath water. Perhaps not _her_ , but close enough to know that I didn't risk going back there, and that was _exactly_ what Elizabeth and her tears portended. Not that I minded dying...I'd done more than enough to deserve those wages in my life. But what man who'd truly lived _hadn't_?

To those who'd never experienced it, war was insanity, a pointless enterprise of killing and blood. To most who _have_ lived it, that conception was doubly affirmed...with the exception that you were _in_ it, and in the thick of the matter realized you had a _choice_...to fight like hell for survival or roll over and die. In that choice lay everything _,_ for either way death was coming. Most tried to postpone the date, hopefully to much later. I'd never been one to roll over...particularly when I had a reason to fight.

But that fact did little to settle my nightmares.

I took to the bathroom and cleaned up, brushing teeth, shaving the whiskers from my face, looking back into the eyes of the man I'd come to loathe. Had I ever really had a choice? Perhaps once on a cold Dakota morning I had, but as I'd found out then, making the right choice could be impossibly hard when one's fears and insecurities got in the way. Or desires. Wiping the stray shave cream away with a hand towel, I turned back to our room whose door was still ajar.

Lying there upon white sheets and pillow Elizabeth was at peace, hair fallen gently over ear and neck, lashes dark and closed, mouth slightly ajar as she took breath. I stepped back in to my hanging shirt, apparently brought in the night before by Mrs. Swezey. As I buttoned up my eyes traced the gentle upturn of her nose and lips...the fragile clasp of her fingers upon her chest. She was the best part of my life. Perhaps the only good thing I'd ever made. And we were supposed to be safe. We didn't need this Tesla, and we sure as hell didn't need to find a tear.

The socks and pants were likewise fresh and clean, though of my boots I couldn't have said the same. With travelling to come, they would have to suffice. "Elizabeth." I said, nudging the bed as I tied my neckerchief. "Time to get up."

Blearily she opened her eyes, voice raspy. "Booker?"

"Yeah." I smiled, amazed at the tiniest flutters and details of her. She sat up, hair spilling over her neck and nightshirt's shoulders to rub her eyes. I plopped down beside her to pull my boots on. "Sleep well?"

She brushed her hair back and furrowed her countenance at me, fine eyebrows intent. "I'm not certain."

I kissed her on the forehead. "I love you. We're going with Ryan, so you ought to get ready." Realizing what I'd said, her eyes lit up and she suddenly reached out and hugged me.

The way she'd beamed made me happy despite my worries as I headed downstairs, finding Mrs. Swezey there preparing breakfast. Having been catch as catch can over the last weeks for meals, it was welcome to have a square one waiting. "Good morning, Mr. Montgomery." She said as she set the placements.

"Good morning, Ma'am. Perchance have you seen Mr. Ryan about? He'd agreed to give us a ride up to Wardenclyffe this morning and I'm loathe to miss it. We walked quite enough yesterday."

She glanced out the window and over to the idle swing. Though the screen door was closed, the front door was open and a coolness flowing from it. From there I heard a grunt. "Yes, Mr. Montgomery. I believe he is outside loading his automobile. Breakfast will be set in five minutes. Can I count on you and your daughter to attend or are you in too great a hurry?"

I looked outside then back to her, wondering if she wanted the company or was only being hospitable. With the empty chair at the table's head and light travel of her house, I suspected the former. "How about if I find out?"

The screen door clattered as I headed out onto the porch, my face meeting morning air that was both cooler more refreshing than any on a late July day had a right to be. It had been a clear night I supposed, and with a brief glance to my right I found the pale green of the swing. For a moment I saw myself rocking there with Elizabeth, but realized time was fleeting. Down upon the dirt courtyard Ryan was loading a suitcase, one he seemed to have a degree of trouble with. "Need a little help there, pal?"

Ryan looked up the steps to me with surprise and even trepidation. With a concerted shove he secured his bag into the bonnet. "No, I think I'm quite all right, Mr. Montgomery, but thank you kindly." Oddly he hesitated before speaking, and again I could hear that reticence in his young voice. "Are...are you and your daughter still interested in the ride? I'd been about to knock but thought I'd be ready to go before I did." By the keys I spied in his Model V's convertible's ignition, I got the suspicion there might have been no knock.

Despite sudden wariness I saw the only other car in the park to be the Whateley's black Buick. As I had learned at Supper the night before, they were going nowhere. "Yes, actually, we are. Were you going to take breakfast, Mr. Ryan?"

"I am afraid I was not." He replied without looking, walking to the door of the dusty black vehicle and throwing his hat upon the red upholstery of its front seat. He turned, lending his hand to the canvas rooftop. "I do have an early appointment. Perhaps with our apologies we might decline Mrs. Swezey's hospitality, or better yet retain some comestibles for the road."

Still trying to gauge what his edgy manner was about, I decided whatever it was should be none of my business. We were lucky to have transport. "Well, beggars can't be choosers...I'll inform our hostess and fetch Eliza...uh, Evelyn."

#

"It's perhaps ten miles to the town..." Ryan said as we bumped and jostled down the road. Behind me Elizabeth was crunching into a crisp red apple in the back seat and entertaining the possibility of a white napkin wrapped biscuit. With it so much cooler than the day before, a product I supposed of the morning as well as the trees that hung over the road north like a tunnel, my jacket had been in order. With Elizabeth in the previous evening's outfit, that jacket was on her and I'd grown chill. Despite our banter she'd been unusually quiet in her makeshift morning meal, even retiring. "At least as the crow flies." We hit a terrific rut, and even though Ryan wasn't driving more than fifteen miles an hour it threw us all rather hard. Elizabeth yelped.

I turned to find jam and biscuit all over my girl's face and it impossible to suppress a sniggering snort. She glared at me and wrinkled her nose, wiping the strawberry preserves away with a cloth napkin and the crumbles from her lap. For a moment she looked something other than embarrassed and I mouthed _'are you okay?_ ' She fretted and bit her lower lip and I knew my answer. Whatever was eating her was not the biscuit.

Not wishing to seem untoward, I looked back out in front and to our driver. "So, I can't help but notice, Mr. Ryan, is that a bit of an accent on you? It sounds vaguely..."

"Russian." Ryan smiled. "After a fashion."

"I...didn't mean to intrude." I said over the engine banging and crunching of dirt. "I was just curious. I suppose that explains your interest in the European matter."

"Oh, I take no offense, Mr. Montgomery. In fact I hold it as a badge of honor. We came over going on twenty years ago through Ellis Island...with me as but a young boy. At the time I thought it a hardship, that journey, but looking back on the matter I can only see it for the blessing it was. It was the last days of the revolt against the Czar, you see. Before the Rule of Horror."

"Rule of Horror?" I heard from behind, realizing my girl had finally spoken.

"How those outside of Russia have come to refer to the Bolsheviks. You know...the Communists. The 'Reds.'" Ryan glanced briefly back over his shoulder, careful to return his eyes to the treacherous highway. "Have you ever heard of the tale of Procrustes, my Dear?"

"I've read Greek myth." She answered, not meeting his gaze fully. "And I seem to remember the name, though the precise tale eludes me."

"Then you would understand my analogy, for he was a son of Poseidon, a demigod who lorded over Mount Korydallos on the sacred way between Athens and Eleusis. And you might also remember he had a bed in which he invited every passerby to spend the night. Once so enthralled the god would set to work on them with his smith's hammer, to stretch them to fit. If the guest proved too tall, Procrustes would amputate the excess length...and nobody ever fit the bed exactly.

Such now is the way of things in the Russias under the Bolsheviks, their so called 'Union of Congresses.' Those who were bright and successful in business, the Bourgeoisie, have been branded thieves, their wealth confiscated and redistributed to the 'masses.' Which, in reality, means the Party and Stalin. The Czar, his family and retainers, have been slaughtered or coopted. Those incapable of self-sustenance were given the spoils of those that were. And anyone of the common folk who rejected this manner of thought have systematically been killed or enslaved, sent to the gulags of Siberia. There is only one acceptable understanding of reality, and understanding is the political thought of the Party. But, as they say, everyone is measured equally...those that excel in particular. Either they serve the purposes of the Bolsheviks or they are cut to fit. And by that I mean most permanently."

"And how...how is it that your family had the foresight to escape?" Elizabeth asked, though with reticence. Perhaps the visions he was peddling were too close to home.

Ryan tapped his brakes and slowed, navigating another rut with greater skill than before. "My father, rest his soul, saw in that foment before the Czar's overthrow the dangers to come, for he had been acquainted with many of those the men who later became these Bolsheviks. Perhaps mine have always been bell weathers of hard times, though. We are the first to be blamed."

"Bell weathers? The first to be blamed? She questioned. "What do you mean by 'your people'?"

"Jews, Miss Montgomery. My family is of the old faith, though I find it personally hard to place my hopes in a God who seems to have abandoned us. I hope you take no offense, but before the dark times, times had always been bleak for us...or so my father and mother have told me. When the Czar's men came for my father's comrades in Minsk, we were already years settled here in the bosom of New York. Yet the lesson was not lost on us, I assure you...we learned it from afar as well as these new lessons. Though my son is young, I shall never allow him to forget them either."

Within a few minutes we came up a shallowing rise and ground to a halt with a squeal of handbrakes. A crossroads lay before us, at the right side of the road a weathered but prominent gray wooden plank announced the sleepy hamlet of 'Middle Island' in black letters. Caddy corner to that sign and across the dusty yellow crossing, a series of whitewashed row houses ran west, the largest of which sported a shady porch beneath a pair of young oaks. Over it the name "Howard Pfeiffer" was raised on a board, while on the façade of the house attached to it the words 'Flour Feed and Grain' were painted. A horse and buggy sat outside in the company of two older Model Ts.

Dallying for a passing horse drawn cart and driver who regarded our clattering contraption dubiously, Ryan put on the gas and we headed north. A few buildings and houses passed. Soon the woods were about us again as we pressed up a shallow grade.

Save for the matter of Daisy Fitzroy, Elizabeth's thoughts for the last weeks had been unbridled, yet for the remainder of the drive she remained conspicuously absent from my conversation with Ryan, which touched on family then his business and dealings with this Tesla. Upon coming to a "T" intersection along a poorly attended east west road ten minutes later, we turned right and commenced the final miles of our journey.

It was close to the sea here, for in the warming morning air I could see the occasional gull and scent the tang of salt. As we rounded a slight bend in the road, across a field I saw a railroad with train pulling into a station and sighed. And then I saw of all things a lighthouse. Only it wasn't a lighthouse.

It was _the_ lighthouse.

Like a conical railroad trestle it rose into the air, a slender triangle at least a train length high or perhaps more, so tall it was that it was impossible to fully gauge. Atop it a golden-red ball sat, facets gleaming in the morning sun. "Do you see that?" I said, voice barely more than a whisper. Beside me Elizabeth leaned forward in shared amazement, fingertips clasped upon the back of the seat.

"Booker..." Elizabeth whispered from behind me, the brush of her hair upon my ear. "That's it...the one from the doors..."

Only not quite. Though unmistakably the same shape as the edifice we'd seen, it was but a framework and not stone...nor were there any cliffs nor seas nearby. As the tower loomed ahead I'd stopped talking, gaping at as it rose into the blue morning sky before us. Had it not been for Columbia, I'd have said I'd never seen anything so spell binding.

On the road just ahead lay a small fortress of brick buildings arrayed about the spire, and across the field I could see that train's engine smoking, its cars disgorging dozens of passengers at that station I saw now quite obviously to be connected. "What is this place?" I asked Ryan, knowing I must have looked the green tourist.

"Why, I've told you..." He said as he turned left down a paved road and puttered toward a small watchman's hut. "This is _Wardenclyffe_."


	6. CITY oF LIGHT

**6\. CITY oF LIGHT - **Tuesday, July 30th, 1912****

Ryan trundling to a halt before a small brick gatehouse set amid a wrought iron security fence. To its sides and beyond brick buildings rose, a low one central and perhaps one hundred feet before us. About its singular story arched windows were set, all in white trim. About it rose a dozen other edifices of the same architecture only larger and more expansive, while upon its top a narrow tower rose from a square cupola. Almost perfectly in line behind the building reached the skyscraping monstrosity neither me nor Elizabeth could pry our eyes from.

Dressed in a dark blue uniform resembling a New York cop, the young attendant inspected us with brown eyes, pausing for a longer moment upon Elizabeth in the back. "Good Morning, Mr. Ryan. Business with the boss this morning?"

Ryan nodded. "Yes. Some specialty electrical components I'm bringing in...very esoteric. I do believe he's been waiting for them for a few days."

Tipping his cap to Elizabeth, the guard brushed blond hair back at his temple. "Associates of yours? I don't believe I recollect them from your previous trips."

"Associates, actually. I was hoping to introduce them to Mr. Tesla or Mr. Morgan's manager, if the 'great one' is not available. This is Mr. Archibald Montgomery and his daughter, Evelyn."

"A pleasure, Ma'am," The boy said, leaning in to look us over, Elizabeth more than me. "Well, you are in luck. Mr. Tesla is just in from New York but a few moments ago on the Express. You may park in in the lot." Again he tipped his hat. "A pleasure to meet you Mr. Montgomery." He hesitated but could not suppress an admiring grin. "Miss."

He had a nice, stern chin and was modestly attractive, and as we pulled away Elizabeth's eyes remained with his, her hair bobbing as she turned to follow in her seat. I tried to ignore it. Inside the gate a well-manicured lawn spread, punctuated here and there by tall elms. Ryan brought us in a bit swiftly, the Model V jostling as he braked to a screeching halt. He turned and looked to us with aplomb, seeing Elizabeth dazed by his abrupt halt. About us men in suits and bowler hats were plying the sidewalks between the buildings, and from across a wide yard to our right I saw a flash...heard a crack loud and electrical in its aftermath. It drew our attention.

"Be advised, my friends, that you might see a great deal of queerness about the campus." Ryan observed with a quirky smirk. "In fact, you may see a great many things about here that defy expectations. My apologies for stopping in here before town, but I have bit of business to conduct."

"Pardon me, Mr. Ryan, but I thought you said you weren't an expert on Mr. Tesla's affairs last night?" Despite her mild accusation Elizabeth was smiling. "Though forgive me if that is splitting hairs. This...this is splendid."

"I am glad you think so." His eyes panned the compound about us. "Things have changed much here for the better since the early days when Nikola and I first became acquainted. Several years ago matters were considerably more strained. Fortunately with Mr. Morgan's perseverance, Nikola's recovery has been by leaps and bound. Shall I assist you?" At his suggestion Ryan dismounted, alighting upon the pavement to open my daughter's door. For a moment Elizabeth seemed to hesitate at his offer of hand before accepting. My eyes narrowed. Amongst the lab coated men walking to their automobiles about us I saw a stir, heads turning her way, hushed confidences and barely suppressed grins. I didn't need to hear them to know what they were saying. Like a swan Elizabeth alighted before Ryan upon the pavement, looking up to him silently.

"Mr. Montgomery..." Ryan said, leaving her to approach me. "I must confess that I, well, have had ulterior motives for bringing you here. Might I obtain your assistance with my commodities? The luggage is rather heavy and I seem to have strained my back earlier. I would appreciate your assistance in carrying it into the offices."

I glanced towards the main building before us. Through its windows I could see several men working at desks and typewriters. "This is the main office?"

"Yes." Ryan said with a follow of my gaze. "When he first started out, it was the whole of things." He looked over its eaves to the trestle and dome glinting in the blue heavens. "This and the old tower of course. With his success now there is the second tower and associated sales. Tesla R.C. has expanded!" With a sweep of his hand he addressed the dozen or so buildings that ran about us and out toward the train station. "The rest of these buildings are laboratories, manufactures and factories. The large building with stack toward the railroad...that's the physical plant that provides on-site electrical generation. Of Mr. Tesla's own design, by the way."

Elizabeth had bit her lower lip anew, scanning the montage with eye shielding hand. "What...what does Mr. Tesla _do_ here?"

"Why, everything, my Dear!" He walked to the boot and opened it, drawing with some exertion a large brown bag from inside. "But as you have seen last night, his company specializes in the practical applications of radiant power. Mr. Montgomery, your assistance, if you would?"

Still trying to figure out why Elizabeth was shying from the man, I walked up beside him and hauled the suitcase out with a concerted draw. He'd said it was heavy and I found it was, nearly dropping it. His eyes said for a frightened instant that such an event would not have been a financially lucrative option.

"Radiant power? What's that?" I asked, hefting the bag over shoulder. It must have weight fifty pounds or more and jostled metallically as I carried it.

"As I have said, I am no expert, however, to my understanding it has been the miracle that has made the routine transmission of not only messages but electrical power practical at distance, hence the salvation of the _Titanic_ months ago after she encountered those catastrophic tempests over the North Atlantic. Were it not for her experimental induction engines, I fear lives might have been lost. I have heard also that Mr. Tesla has other works afoot here."

"Other works?" Elizabeth asked, eyeing me ever so ephemerally.

Ryan smiled and with a toss of head gestured toward the offices. "Perhaps he might explain himself?"

We headed up three steps to a stoop, and as Elizabeth and Ryan walked along exchanging pleasantries, I ruminated that I'd always felt the beast of burden. Cordially Ryan held the door for me, and as we entered turned right and walked past a room filled with rows of clattering typists, ending in a conference room at the southeastern corner of the facility. Once inside he gestured to the table. Somewhat put off, I set the suitcase down carefully, feeling in my right hand a tremor upon its brown leather.

"If you shall wait here, I'll go see if Nikola has a moment to spare." He paused, glancing to Elizabeth afterward before the bag. "Mr. Montgomery, Evelyn...would you perhaps mind drawing the components from the suitcase as I fetch him? It would save a bit of time when hopefully we return. An array would be most excellent." Ryan turned and slipped out, leaving the hardwood door to close with a creak. I turned and looked at Elizabeth.

"Who _is_ this guy?" I asked, rolling my eyes.

She noticed I was favoring my bandaged hand and took it into hers with a kiss. From there she looked up to me, then around the room and to the trees and people walking outside. "Booker, this means something. Does it still hurt?"

"Not too bad." I said. She smiled and kissed it again before opening the luggage. From it she drew parts of electrical and mechanical nature.

"Capacitors and resistors." She held an oddly shiny one before her eyes. "This is a relay."

"What's that mean?" I said, familiar only with fuses and gigantic birds.

"Something." She answered. I took her by the upper arm and turned to me. "What is going on between the two of you?"

She stopped and regarded me evasively. "I..."

"Elizabeth..." I said, again feeling the pain in my still healing right hand. "Please, you have me worried. What is wrong?"

"When...when I went to the bathroom last night, he was up. We talked and I was mad at you and we went downstairs to talk."

"You were mad at me?"

"Maybe not mad...distant." She stopped and corrected herself. "Okay, mad. I didn't see how you couldn't know how important this was!"

"What did he do?" I asked sternly, not wishing to voice my worries to her...at least yet.

"Nothing. He..." She paused. Her knuckle touched her lower lip, the little thimble glinting in the late morning sun coming in through the windows. "He tried to kiss me."

I stood there looking at her. "And?"

She looked at me as if I were crazy. "Well, I didn't let him! He is married, after all. It was most untoward."

I heard noise down the hall and turned to the bag, extracting piece by piece dozens of the oddest gears and wired things I'd ever laid eyes upon. "And he didn't touch you afterward, after you let him know that you wanted no part of that?"

She shook her head and smiled, peering out from beneath those lashes. "No. But it warms my heart that it concerns you."

"How could it not?" I placed a device upon the table, making an array with the others before sitting upon it and meeting her blue. She was looking at me and me her. "What they hell have we gotten ourselves into?"

"Something wonderful!" She said as she pulled away. She clapped her hands together. "I'm so excited!"

From the door now I heard voices and completed my placements with Elizabeth's aid. Ryan entered, followed by a tall, lanky figure wearing a white lab coat and slicked back hair. Despite being roughly my height he was quite thin, skin marble of the palest yellow, high cheekbones expressed as I'd seen in many Slavs. Sporting a flared mustache that swept down upon his lips on an otherwise clean-shaven face, he was unconventionally handsome. "Nikola, may I introduce my assistant Mr. Archibald Montgomery and his enchanting daughter, Evelyn.

Upon seeing us Tesla's brow furrowed, his dark but piercing blue eyes flitting rapidly between me and Elizabeth. He produced a smile and his hand. "Mr. Montgomery, a pleasure to meet."

"Mr. Tesla." I replied, exchanging a solid handshake.

With a turn he clicked his heels together, then with a cant of his head gathered Elizabeth's hand into his own before raising it to a perfect kiss suited for nobility. "My Lady, a pleasure to meet such grace." He lowered her hand, and having dispensed with pleasantries turned to Ryan and the matter at hand with a cocked eyebrow. "These are your new components?"

Ryan approached the table at his side. "Yes, Mr. Tesla, designed to your specifications. If you'd like, I have the schematics in the folio next to them."

"Yes, I would like that very much, but not for me, for I know them. Please ensure Joseph receives the documents." He said, holding one of the silvery metal, copper wire wound disks up before his eye. With a cast back to us he continued. "By the way, Peter, it is good to see you getting help with the business. How is your family?" As he spoke a pair of men entered the room, attending Tesla's side. "Jacob, Joseph, Mr. Ryan has graciously supplied the schematics. Could you have these capacitors and relays taken...gently...to the South Receiving Facility for bench testing? We do not need any mishaps as last time."

"Of course, Mr. Tesla." The first technician replied guiltily, a tall, thin graying fellow who wore his white lab coat like a clothes rack. "But...would you not like us to inspect the pieces?"

Tesla shook his head. "I have never been displeased with the manufacture of his wares. They are always of the highest quality. Please ensure they remain that way while in our care."

The technician nodded. "Joseph, please assist me in gathering a gurney so we can roll them over en masse."

"Yes, Mr. Whitley." The smaller, darker and pudgier man said. Both were clean shaven, pale with crisp haircuts and seemed in awe of the man the room now turned about.

As the second technician set out to acquire the former's requested cart, Ryan stood thumb to lower lip, obviously pleased at his client's praise. "Well, Nikola, the wife is busy with the social enterprise of the City and our Nanny is preparing our little one for great things. Thank you for the interest."

Tesla nodded, thumb similarly upon lip as his glanced outside across the bluegrass. "Well, I do like to remain aware of the affairs of my suppliers. It is difficult to find trusted ones." He paused and turned. "Any more sales to Mr. Westinghouse?" He asked, cocking his head toward Ryan. "I have heard he is expanding."

"Some." Ryan said, with a hint of reserve in his voice.

For a moment the scientist paused, reaching into his coat pocket to produce a check. "And the agreed upon price was?"

"Two hundred and twenty five Dollars, Mr. Tesla." Ryan answered. Tesla looked to the check and handed it over. After a perusal the salesman again seemed quite pleased though he endeavored not to show it. He glanced to us and returned his attentions to the man. "Mr. Tesla, I realize your time is quite sparing, but my assistants might wish a short tour of you facilities, if that might be arranged? We have come a long way."

The thin man smiled contritely. "Ah, but I am very sorry. Today I and my assistants are very busy with a major experiment and your components have arrived just in time. So, I am afraid...that I must decline. Perhaps another time? Elliott shall be in shortly to arrange out next order, after which he shall show you to the door. "Please give my fondest regards to your wife, Peter."

#

"Well, that went well." Elizabeth mumbled as we descended the short concrete steps to the sidewalk. Over her shoulder she looked back, teasing her nub unconsciously. Behind us the technician Tesla had referred to as Elliott closed the office's front doors. I glanced downward to Elizabeth and her finger. She looked back at me with disappointment and a shrug.

"Well, I suppose that I should not leave the pair of you marooned her but a mile from the town. I do assume your intentions are still to remain?" Elizabeth nodded. "Well, there is the Shoreham Inn. Does that strike your fancy?"

A car, I thought, would strike my fancy. "That will do, and we appreciate the ride, both to here and there. Perhaps the Inn...they might know some available real estate?"

"Of that I cannot say." Ryan stated as he approached his auto. He opened the back door and offered his hand to Elizabeth as she entered. "To the Shoreham Inn it is."

Emerging from Wardenclyffe's gates, Ryan took us back west the way we'd come, then via a quick right turn over tracks and past the railway station that loomed on a grassy ridge fifteen feet above them. I looked to it, then with a stern consideration to Elizabeth. With sheepish grin and loll of eyes she shrugged.

A tree lined dirt road followed where brown shingled homes lurked upon the sparsely wooded hills to the west. To the north between the station and our destination, however, lay an imposing hardwood forest. Every now and then I could see Dogwoods alight with yellow pink fire amid the deep green. In the Long Island summer the country was lush and pastoral, and though the dirt path was rough, behind me Elizabeth's gaze had turned dreamily to take it all in.

 _Shoreham,_ as more than one sign announced, was a quaint hamlet, more of a colony spread along the coast than any sort of village. It took money to build such a place, for this was no farming town. Throughout the meadows and copses I could see well-constructed homes rising two and three stories.

"I could not but help notice, my Dear, your fingertip." Ryan said as he slowed, honked his hand horn and steered us around a lone wandering chestnut filly. "I hope you do not mind me asking, but how...how did you come to lose it? Mind you this is only out of my morbid curiosity...if the discussion of it troubles you, please pay my intrusion no mind."

Elizabeth had been both sensitive to the matter of her finger and inured to it, but the directness of Ryan's question seemed to trigger her reserve. Pulling her eyes from the nearby trees, she sighed, holding the thimble for her own consideration. "Much like my birthday, Mr. Ryan, its origin predates my memory. Is the sight of it displeasing?"

"Saddening, yes...displeasing, _never_ , my Dear. But I did wonder if perhaps the tragedy had been painful."

"It was and continues to be..." Elizabeth observed. With narrowed eyes she looked at me and I felt like an ass. "From time to time."

Along the county road Ryan slowed, idling before a north leading dirt track named "Woodville" that lead to the right. Turning onto it with a dust up from the tires, his car accelerated, heavy woodlands and telephone poles passing to our east. Here and there on the more sparsely foliated other side homes nestled amongst the rolling hills, copses of trees rising between each like fences. Beyond those pretty manors we could make out the sea and hazy Connecticut. In one extraordinary cottage's yards horses were grazing, while nearby in outfits far too warm for summertime children were at play in the sun. We drove for some ways, passing more cottages until from the woods another road...again barely a dirt track...joined from the right. Caddy corner to our slowing vehicle lay a clearing with a three story hotel nestled behind a row of bright broadleaf elms. A white lettered sign called out _The Shoreham Inn._

Above that tree lined turnoff our lodgment sat upon a low hill, white with a porch surrounding its lowermost level. As Ryan began to turn down its drive I could see a handful of automobiles at the steps at the low hill's base, one idling as it offloaded passengers. From the porch a pair of women looked down in our direction, following us in their white dresses, parasols in hand and gabbing as refined ladies do.

"Looks okay." I said, glancing to the many rooms of those three stories. Each of its windows were adorned with an awning to protect the interior from the sun. At its side a long and similarly white building ran perpendicular to the main house, perhaps the kitchens and dining room.

"What about that one back there?" I said, gesturing to a building with several automobiles in attendance we'd just passed.

Ryan nodded. " _The Maples_? More of a store at the moment, though I understand the lady of the house, Mr. Warden's widow, has been exploring making it into something more."

"What's that?" Elizabeth said, her slender finger pointing not at the _Shoreham_ nor _Maples_ but between me and Ryan toward a structure straight down the road. Before us it rose, wooden and dark with two stories of windows glinting in the late morning sun. From our vantage the building seemed to have no base, though to its west ran a series of attached but smaller cottages. I realized then that the road ran over a shallow rise, one that continued gently downward, we shortly found, into a tree choked ravine. Seeing her interest, Ryan was obliged to continue.

Off to the ravine's western flank rose her building upon a prominent bluff, cozy with wood siding shake roof and great overhanging eaves. Through the gaps between its attendant cottages I could see us quite high up and obviously upon an escarpment, for beyond them was the glimmering blue of the sea. "Oh, Booker..." She sighed, hand covering her mouth.

Having learned to recognize my daughter's wants over the last month, I turned to Ryan and asked, "What about those?"

"Hapgood's Bungalows. Clean and rustic, but lacking some of the polish of the Shoreham."

"Oh, can we!?" Elizabeth exclaimed, turning to grasp my upper arm with both hands.

Realizing that our finances might find the bungalows more conducive than the ritzy Shoreham Inn, I nodded ahead. "I that's what you want. Mr. Ryan..." I said. "Would you mind dropping us off there?"

#

"I love it!" Elizabeth cooed with a step toward the main house's flank, gazing over the boardwalk's precipice down a long flight of wooden stairs to the beach below. Along its sandy white expanse waves gently lapped. She turned back to us, hands clasped almost as if committing to a prayer. "I just _love_ it!"

"Booker?" Ryan said, having now heard my name twice at my daughter's poor consideration. "Is that some sort of nick name?"

I nodded as Elizabeth pranced down the steps, coming back up again more slowly with hand upon weatherworn rail for they were steep. "Yes. She's always called me that."

"Seems odd." He said. "Makes me think of that Negro gentleman stirring up such a ruckus the last decade."

"It could do worse than him. He's a fighter." I said, wondering if perchance my Father had done named me so intentionally. Elizabeth approached, ever so pleased, her boots creaking upon the boards.

"Well, I am glad you like it, my Dear." Ryan said, though in his voice I could swear I heard disappointment. "Unfortunately Mr. Montgomery, young Miss, this is where we must part company. I have a consultation in Setauket this afternoon and would be financially disadvantaged if I missed...and you have seen how the roads are in these parts." He glanced to us both. By now Elizabeth had taken my arm into hers. "Are you certain you shall both be well?"

"I believe so." I answered. "Now that I know where the train station lies. Thank you again for your charity."

"And yours for the lugging of my grandiose suitcase of electronical components. That would have been most difficult bring singlehandedly into Tesla's front office." Looking upon us with what could only have been pity, he drew a money clip from his jacket. From its silver he drew a ten and offered it to me. "Would you accept this as a show of my gratitude?

"Oh, no." I said, gazing up on the slender green note. "But thank you. We really have no need and what I did was very little."

"Oh, do indulge me, good Sir. Your presence was more than a help with luggage...it helped me cement the sale, for Tesla saw that I now run something other than a one man show. Frankly, my wife and associates will be exceptionally pleased with today's sale. Please...accept this as a token of my gratitude."

With humility I looked upon his extended offer, a curious Elizabeth, then collected it. I could not help but think it would come in handy, perhaps soon, but it burned that I was accepting his largesse. I despised charity. "Thank you, Mr. Ryan."

"As I said, my pleasure." Elizabeth he now approached, gazing into her eyes. "I have encountered neither a lovelier nor more graceful lady in all of my travels. I do hope that someday we might cross paths again." Lifting for a final time her thimbled hand, he kissed it.

"Goodbye, Mr. Ryan." She said with some reservation, yet also that glimmer in a girl's eyes toward a man she finds compelling.

"Safe travels." I added, shaking his hand and managing somehow not to break it. Climbing aboard his auto, he tipped his hat. The car started, he threw it into reverse and backed out. With a clatter and wave he barreled down the road, dust rising in a pall as he receded down the tree lined path. In the distance he honked and waved his hat.

Beside me Elizabeth held my hand. "Okay, what happened between you and lover boy?"

"I told you before, nothing!" She protested, turning to me with insult upon her face.

"That look you had back there doesn't suggest 'nothing' occurred." I glanced at the cash in hand. "Well, at least this will pay for a couple of nights." As her consternation faded she cradled her thimble. "Well?"

Her eyes turned downward to the gray slats upon which we stood. "I...haven't felt anything since yesterday."

I sighed. "We're nearly out of money, you know. Maybe thirty bucks to our name with his charity. And when we run out, so do our options. We still don't have any answers."

"Booker..." She took my forearm in her hands and turned upon the boardwalk, looking into my eyes. "That's not true. The answers...they're all back there." She pointed through the forest beyond the Shoreham Inn, from the Bungalows mostly obscured by the trees. "We only need to find them because now we know the _where_! I mean, what we saw last night..."

"What do you expect me to do, Elizabeth?" I answered, frustration in my voice as I mounted the steps to the Main House's porch. Down below us I could hear the swath of waves marching along dark blue waters, catching the sandy yellow shore to the glee of running, splashing children. "Break in?"

She looked at me mischievously, biting her lower lip with a furtive glance back toward Tesla's imperial sprawl beyond the wood. I knew then that was _exactly_ what she wanted. Unexpectedly she began to lead me away from it, back into the shade of the overhanging portico. "Presently I expect us to _chec_ k in..." She gleamed as we approached the establishment's office. "Then you're going to come with me down to the beach!"

 _Hapgood's Beachfront Bungalows_ , the sign above the doors proclaimed. With the sound of solid wood beneath my boots I didn't have a bad feeling about it, just the general sense of unease that had accompanied me ever since our precipitation from Columbia. The doors were open and I entered with ever hopeful Elizabeth in tow, finding the establishment clean and kept in a way that reminded me of the souvenir shop in Battleship Bay. Behind the counter a man short and with graying sideburns looked up, attired in white shirt, pants and a tan vest. He closed his tome upon the desk, a _Tale of Two Cities_.

"Well, good day, Sir. Young Miss." He smiled. "Welcome to Hapgood's."

"We'd be liking a room, or a bungalow, if you have one available." I said, brushing dust laden hair aside. "For myself and my...daughter." Beside me Elizabeth was ebullient and nodded to the man.

"Well..." He answered, turning back to a wooden board which held six empty sticks and one glinting brass key. "We so happen to have one left...it is the summer season, you know."

"Does it have a view?" Elizabeth asked impatiently.

"Indeed it does, my Dear...in fact, all of our cottages do. Splendid views."

"We'll take it!" She said. I looked at her and sighed. She smiled.

"Wonderful." The innkeeper said with similar grin. "That will be two dollars."

I nearly choked. "Two dollars? For one night?!"

"Oh, Booker..." She said, coming around at me with a mix of indignation and those puppy dog eyes. "Please..."

" _Do you want to bankrupt us_?!" I whispered. She didn't budge. With a grimace I exhaled and produced the ten. "I hope you can make change, Mister...?"

"Indeed, I can." He said and stepped to withdraw a cash box from a drawer. He'd missed my question. Elizabeth giggled and hugged me and I know I blushed.

As she ran to look off the office's back porch across the Sound below, I handed him the bill. "So, you Hapgood?"

"Goodness, no. I wish I were. Wendell Livingstone. Mr. Hapgood is the proprietor, the man who has developed this entire town. I just take care of the place here along with my wife, Lucilia." Out back Elizabeth squealed and with a smirk I rolled my eyes. "Lovely lady you have there, Mr...?" He produced a guestbook for my signature. Deciding this place was so isolated no one could ever find it even with a map, I signed _Mr. Booker and Miss Elizabeth DeWitt_. "DeWitt." I nodded as he placed the guestbook back upon its podium at the desk. Drawing that lone key from the wall rack, he handed it over. "Towels and linens are in the room. We do, conveniently, have indoor plumbing and running hot and cold water."

For two dollars I thought they damned well should. "That will be fine."

"If you're looking for dinner, the Shoreham Inn will serve you, or Mrs. Warden's Guesthouse. I am afraid we have no room for dining."

I felt the deal getting worse by the moment. Suspecting I'd not be able to keep her from the water, I glanced from her frolic to him. "I suppose it will have to do. Say, Wendell, where about here in Shoreham might I go about finding some bathing clothes?"

#

When a bit later I came back to the room with garments in hand and another two dollars poorer, Elizabeth had tidied the place, thrown the storm shutters open and drawn the windows up. As the day had continued it had warmed and a breeze commenced from the sea, blowing gentle but firm, cooling the perspiration upon my brow. In the shade of our porch it felt especially good.

Inside I heard her singing softly, apparently in the bath. I lay the clothes on the white covers atop the lone bed within, a queen, and took to one of a pair of rockers sat outside. Hot from the walk, I reclined and looked out over the hundred foot drop to the beachfront below. Toward the eastern rise and alongside he mouth of the gully a large pavilion rose from the bluff's face, attended by a handful of beachgoers, a switchback of wooden steps leading from its parapet down to the sand. On our side the series of steps led down straight from the bungalows, a picturesque yet daunting descent.

I couldn't get it out of my mind that this place was somehow oddly familiar.

The singing stopped and Elizabeth emerged with a smile upon her face and gave me a hug and peck upon the cheek. "Well, what do you think?" She said, hands open before herself, soliciting approval of her domestic skills.

I thought I wanted a drink of water. "It's really nice." My eyes carried again out across the water, seeing a collage of sails against the scrawl of green on the horizon. Behind them a freighter steaming east, while in the blue above an airship glinting in the west, nearly into New York. "Can't deny the view is spectacular."

She sat beside me, still beaming and took my forearm. "We should make plans."

"On what we're going to tell the cops once we get caught?" I huffed. "Or how we're going to bust out of jail without tears? This is a bad idea, Elizabeth."

Her expression fell and absently she attended her hair. "You forget how good I am with locks, Mr. DeWitt. And don't forget, I've seen you at work. You're intimidating."

Somehow I'd never thought that a compliment, particularly from the men whom I'd kneecapped for Carnegie...whether he'd liked little fact or not. "Elizabeth...if we go in there and anything goes wrong, they surely have guards. You think I _liked_ killing those people in Columbia? God forgive me, I think about it every night. Please, don't make me do that again."

"Booker?" She whispered. "I..." For a time she was silent. "They didn't give us a choice."

With her comment I saw the sadness flood her face and wished I'd kept my mouth shut. "I'm sorry." I said, taking her hand in mine until she looked at me. "They didn't. But if we do this and you think these people will, well...you're wrong. They won't know our intentions, they'll think us _thieves_. If they have guns, and I'll bet they do because they _always_ have guns, they'll shoot and likely not ask questions. Didn't you see how that Tesla was with Ryan, asking about his competition? Do you want to see that poor kid at the gate dead at my hand?"

"Then we'll tell them." She said, her mood still blackened. I caught her looking at her knife hand. We'll...we'll walk right up and tell them."

"Tell them what? Tell Tesla? Tell him...tell him that you have magic power and can make tears to other worlds? Or that you can just feel them like a water witch? Or maybe that you spent your formative years in a crazy world that's not quite our own in the care of a religious nut job?" I shook my head. "I know who he'll think the nut job is."

"Then we'll never know."

"We have to start being real, Elizabeth. Maybe you felt something, I don't know, and maybe this Tesla is up to something, hell, I _know_ he is, but this is _life_. You aren't the Lamb here and I'm sure as hell not the False Shepherd. I'm...I'm your father and I have to take care of you. At least until you can...find a decent husband."

"I don't want a _decent_ husband!" She protested loudly, realizing after her scene just how wrong that had sounded. To my left I looked down the row of cottages to see a couple looking our way, glasses of lemonade in hand.

I liked lemonade. "Elizabeth..." I hushed.

She glanced their direction and approximated a smile, one that evaporated as she turned back to me. "I..." She looked down at her lap, a look of hopelessness if ever I'd seen one. Without saying another word she wrung her hands and stepped inside.

I sat there feeling the breeze in my hair, listening to the wash of waves below, knowing what _I_ wanted also. Bourbon, or perhaps, just some kind of whiskey. McSorley's sounded particularly enticing at the moment. I heard rustling inside, the clatter of shoes flying and turned to see what the commotion was. Through the open double doors Elizabeth emerged, very nearly naked.

"Elizabeth!" I exclaimed, shocked at the 'swimwear' she was wearing. "Where did you get that?!" Instead of the swim dress I'd bought her at _the Maples_ , my girl was in something skin tight and not even mid-thigh, a something I then realized to be powder blue under of the suit I'd purchased. It had nothing upon her shoulders, little upon her bosom and not a bit of her anatomy left to the imagination.

"You should get dressed." She handed me my suit, which was considerably more sober. "We only have a few more hours of good sun to enjoy the water."

"Where is the _dress_?" I growled.

"Oh, it's in there if you'd like to wear it."

She was being a snit and I didn't like it. " _You're_ wearing it. Put it on immediately."

"This is the fashion they're wearing in France." She shot back indifferently. "You promised me Paris and this is the least you can do." When I didn't bite on the suit hanging from her fingertip, she tossed it on me. "Fine. If you're going to be that way I'll go down to the water alone."

"Elizabeth..." I said. "No, you aren't."

"And who are you, Booker, my father?" She glared at me for a moment before storming off.

 _Lord_. I stepped inside the bungalow. After a moment I emerged in a white tank top and mid-thigh trunks, pulling over the railing to see Elizabeth negotiating tentatively the steps down. We didn't have time for these games. Near the bottom she seemed to pause, to hesitate and look barely back over her shoulder. Seeing me standing there looking, she grinned and raced down to the sand. I sighed and took after her.

I almost slipped going down and the sand was hot as my bare feet met the beach, coming off the last step to a burning coarseness that was almost powder white. With a squint I looked down to the lapping water to see her dip her bare toe in, and every man upon the beach looking. I rolled my eyes and trotted, ignoring the pain, walking up to her just as she was getting more daring with the water. "Please put this on." I implored, handing her the outer dress.

She looked at it with a diabolical grin and said, "No. This is what they're wearing in Paris. I want to wear this." After a considered moment she gave me the courtesy of an approving glance. "You look rather manly, Booker DeWitt."

I pulled the strap of the tank back up my shoulder. "I feel like a clown." Again I saw every eye about us on her, and what was worse, those of the _women_. Deciding 'father knows best' was a losing gambit, I tried another tack.

"Elizabeth..."

"Brrrr." She said as she turned, staring at me, crossing her arms before her as she fell backwards into the water with a splash. Her eyes widened instantly and she jumped back up, flinging her frigid body onto mine. "Oh...that's...that's so cold!" She turned to me and brushed her wet snake of hair aside, giggled and pushed away.

"Why do you think we don't go swimming in the East River? Please..." I said again. "Put this on for me." Shivering visibly, she considered the garment. Taking it in hand, she felt it warm from the sun and grudgingly donned it.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." I sighed. Seating the dress, she looked back over her shoulder with that devilish smirk. "Uh, where are we going?" I said as she took me by the hand and began to lead me out into the Sound. I didn't agree to..." Without warning but in a completely predictable manner she hugged me, intentionally off balance to the point I fell atop her into the shallows. She squealed and looked up. The shock of the North Atlantic widened my eyes and I howled. After a moment I rolled to the side. Now both of our bums were in the sand.

"It's so cold!" She laughed.

"Yeah, I heard you the first time." I sat there next to her, disgusted, palms back upon the submerged sand. I figured it in the sixties, perhaps seventy or a bit more. It was chill, but not Battleship Bay cold. For some reason our dwindling finances entered my mind.

I'd been broke too many times, and following the exhaustion of my blood money from Columbia we were going to be there again soon. We had to get away from the threat of Laslowe. We had to get away from the Morellos. We had to _leave_ New York...maybe go out to Ohio or points west. Anywhere they couldn't find us...maybe even Kansas, where at least I knew had family.

No. Not Kansas.

Sitting there in the water with Elizabeth giggling, her eyes so happy and secure, I realized she knew nothing about how bad it could get...what poverty truly was. All she wanted to do was frolic, and there was work to do. Then I remembered Battleship Bay. How she'd asked me to dance. I'd had work to do then too. I smiled softly and brushed her cheek with the back of my hand, remembering, thanking God. She smiled back, not realizing the depth of what I was feeling.

To the cold wash of waves against our backs I spoke. "I love you."

Though still smiling, she looked away almost sadly. "I...I know you do. I love you too."

With my fingers I brought her chin back, her dark lashes opening as I did so, forcing her to meet my gaze. "No, Elizabeth...I _love_ you." I leaned forward, kissing her with my hand upon the side of her face. Eventually and after what seemed like hours I pulled away, remaining close. She didn't say anything, but from her blue a single tear trailed down the side of her cheek. Before I could wipe it away it fell and joined the sea. We sat for a good time, her hand in mine, feeling her close until I realized she'd not really stopped crying. She just wasn't making any sound, just wiping tears from her face. Beside us a canoe rowed by, two boys in white swimsuits looking down at us like an experiment that need to be studied.

"We need to go, don't we?" She snuffled.

"We don't need to do anything." I said quietly.

"We can't be together." She said, laughing amid what I now realized to be anger as the injustice of it all. "Not without becoming a monstrosity, or going to jail or being a front page horror of the day."

"No, we can't."

"Then, what are we to do?" She looked up at me. I took her by the hand and rose, drawing her with me.

"How should I know?" I kissed her on the forehead and hugged her. With a sigh I turned and began to lead her along. "But Paris might have to wait awhile. I'm going to have to get a job, somewhere." As we set foot upon the cool, wet sand both of us dripped. The breeze off the water stung cold, and with a glance back to the girl in hand I was glad she was no longer so exposed. I was still trying to think of something vaguely uplifting to say when suddenly she stopped. I turned to face her. "Elizabeth?" Though her face was still pink from the tears, she wasn't crying anymore. Instead she was looking east of the way we'd come down. "Your finger?"

"No, Booker…" She said. "Look."

I turned to follow her eyes eastward down the beach, past the Pavilion that had earlier blocked my view of the escarpment from the bungalow. As the breeze dried us, there down the coast, perhaps a mile, the bluffs rose precipitously higher. At the base of their steep slopes and right up to the sea a great ziggurat of a concrete was rising, a foundation for something bigger. About its perimeter men and trucks were at work, a steam shovel lifting scaffolds about a growing steel framework.

A framework that looked to me like an enormous conical railroad trestle.

"My God." I whispered, remembering it from the moments before my death…or whatever that had been. Then, in an epiphany, I remembered what I'd seen from _The First Lady_. This place.

"That's it...down there." She whispered and I felt her come to my side. "The last lighthouse. Only there...there isn't much of a lighthouse."

My eyes narrowed upon the distant workmen. "No, there isn't. At least...not _yet_."


	7. City of Night

**7** **. City of Night** – **Tuesday Evening, July 30th, 1912**

"How is this even possible?" Elizabeth said from the porch, the sky above us deep blue and much darker to the east. Down the beach and behind the Pavilion, the mysterious workmen had quit for the night. To the other direction the sun was setting orange, while a steady breeze from the sea ruffled hair and clothes. Having washed off in the tub after our abortive foray into Long Island Sound, we'd changed back into our day clothes, preparing for the subterfuge to come. "I mean, my finger and now this? I thought you said that was all done?"

I took a seat next to her, watching the oncoming sunset and glimmering waters of the Sound along the beach below. "There are a lot of things I don't understand, Elizabeth. I wish I did." She put her hand on mine, cocking her head as the wind caught her hair. "You all right?"

She looked down at her other hand. "What I said earlier about you and Columbia...how they'd not given you a choice. I was...thinking about Daisy again."

"Daisy was going to kill that boy, Elizabeth. You know that."

Her eyes had drifted down, the ghost of a smile upon her face then gone. "I try not to think about it. It keeps me awake, but I can't seem to help myself sometimes. You once told me you just learned to live with it. What if I can't?"

"You will." I said, squeezing her hand tight. "But I'm going to make it so you never have to do something like that again." As I looked at her I knew how she was feeling, and I knew there wasn't much I could do to sway her self-recrimination. _Murderer_ she was thinking to herself. I knew because I'd been there. Maybe I'd never left. "There is a difference between killing and murder, Elizabeth."

"I'm not aware of one." She said as the wind teased the fine strays of her hair. She'd turned now, her profile looking distantly across the empty horizon in the oncoming twilight. "Thou shall not kill."

 _"And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand."_

She turned and looked at me with guilty eyes. "Exodus?"

"Yah." I said, feeling the wind on my face like fingertips. "I think God or somebody like that wrote it."

"What...what does it mean?"

I shrugged. "Something like you don't let people murder other people. You stop them. I guess God was okay with Moses doing it...why not you?"

She pondered quietly what I'd said, the wind whipping between us as the night came on until again she spoke. "Do you believe in God, Booker?"

I swallowed, remembering when she'd asked that before of me. What I'd seen beyond the doors. "I don't know. I'd like to."

"Do you think he forgives us?"

I smiled at her. "I believe he forgives you, Elizabeth. Maybe, sometimes, even me."

She'd been rocking alongside me, waiting impatiently for nightfall. "I...I haven't asked this before. I know you...hurt...people. And the Sioux women. Did you ever, ever...kill...anyone else?"

"Half of Columbia." I answered flatly, eyes back upon the horizon. "But that's not what you mean, is it?" I paused for a moment. "You mean _murder_...like with malice aforethought."

"Yes." She said after a kindred pause, her eyes now with mine upon the horizon. That I had to think about it was telling.

I remembered back to the Rocks when Stuart was coming at me with the axe, then that fat guy with coal dust upon his face and the stupid dungarees and no shirt beneath, just all that chest hair. I remembered being outside Manila in San Juan, searching home to home, finding the kids with the ancient Spanish pistols and all the intent in the world to blow my head off. Sometimes I wished they had. "No." I answered. "I don't think I've ever killed someone who didn't have it coming."

"When should we go?" She asked.

I looked back over my shoulder to our bags upon the bed, Anna's box with junk jewelry inside and a little tiny coffin. "Probably now. While we still have a bit of daylight." She stopped and looked at me. "This is going to be all right."

"You weren't so certain about that earlier."

I stopped rocking and stood, turning to walk back to the coat rack and my hanging jacket. From inside it I drew my holster and the Broadsider. Taking at it in hand, I felt her eyes upon me. I closed my own and with a sigh hung it back on the rack. "Let's go."

#

I'd asked Livingstone earlier about the shortest way to the station. Figuring he'd tell me _Woodville all the way and walk east_ , I'd been surprised when he informed me of 'the track.' As we walked along through the dimming light night birds called about us, the crickets humming in the underbrush. Occasionally I felt a bug alight on my neck and swatted it, saw fireflies glowing along the path ahead. Before us a lone tree branch jutted out from walls of wood. "What is this place?" Elizabeth said, stepping over leaf litter in her blue skirted school girl's outfit and boots. Though I occasionally flailed at the airborne nuisance, she seemed completely oblivious to the no-seeums.

"The counter man at the Bungalows told me about it. It's a path that leads straightaway from the Old Town back there to the Shoreham Depot. I guess it's about a mile, which is a good sight better than taking the way we came in." Again I smacked at a pest.

"It doesn't seem so good for you." She said with an empathetic grimace.

"They just like my sweat. Ain't nothin' I ain't lived with before." My eyes turned to her. "They don't like you much, though."

She shrugged, and I figured ignorance was bliss. "Do you think anyone else is out here?"

"At this time of evening and without light? You'd have to be a fool to come out here." I noted that we did _not_ have a light. From her bag Elizabeth produced a small box with a lens in front of it and clicked it on. Ahead of us a yellow beam illuminated the ground and trees ahead, exposing the path and a fallen scramble of twigs we'd surely have stumbled into. "Where did you get that?" I said.

She looked at me sheepishly. "I...went and bought it down at _the Maples_ earlier today, while you were taking your bath. You took a long time."

"I did not." I said with a sigh, fretting over how much she'd spent. "Let me see..." I took it from her, looking it over and finding it of reasonable manufacture. "The switch is on the top?" As soon as I took it in hand the light went off. "What the hell?"

"It's a flashlight, Booker." I heard her laugh. "You can't keep it on very long before you have to turn it out. The batteries aren't very good, I guess."

"What do you mean, 'you guess?" I snarled.

"Watch out." She said.

"What?" Something grasped my legs and feet and I stumbled forward, hitting the ground with a thud. The lamp went tumbling and came on beaming up at the overhanging trees and bugs spiraling over me. "Uhggg."

She giggled and walked to my side, kneeling in the light to help me up. With it shining into the trees bugs were on it like flies on s... "Are you all right?"

"Yeah." I said, looking around and brushing off. "Just a little damage to my pride." Behind me the snarl of branches I'd seen earlier goaded. Elizabeth walked to the lamp with a smirk upon her face, picked it up and turned it off. "Maybe you could have gotten something a little more efficient."

"It's all they had." She shone it on me, causing me to squint and avert my eyes.

"Elizabeth."

"Come on, it's fun." She turned with a grin and flashed the light down the path, then clicked it off. Again we began to walk, and every so often she'd flash the woods and the way ahead. Once I saw a pair of red eyes gleaming back from the side of the road, and amid the night sounds of the forest heard a rustle. The Broadsider I'd left behind might have been handy. "How much further?" She eventually said.

"Maybe a mile. At least that's what the clerk said."

"That's a long way. How far have we come?"

"Not far enough. Let's get on with it."

It took us twenty minutes on foot to make the station, the end of our hike heralded by a low noise of idling generators and an indistinct glow ahead that outlined trees branches and a wooden trellis over the path. Hanging from the framework was a sign that in the dark we couldn't read. Before it Elizabeth turned, shining her new toy upon the board. "This way to the Shoreham Inn. ¾ of a mile!" She read, eminently pleased with herself. She turned the light off. "You were wrong."

I was still rubbing my shin. "Bill me."

Beyond a dirt parking lot the Shoreham Depot stood, a squat wooden building with a shallow pitched roof, chimney, and five windows on its facing side set amid a cover of shingles. The roof had pronounced eaves all around its perimeter, supported by the upswept curves of wooden brackets. In a trench to the south ran the tracks of the Long Island Railroad, atop the opposite embankment a seven foot high wall. Down to the east a footbridge arched over the right of way, leading to an obviously closed and locked gate. Looming over it were the reverses of buildings, some windows alight from within. But the source of the golden aura emanated from beyond their multistoried heights. In the distance I could hear generators running.

By its own darkness we could see the depot closed for the night. In the glow of that city of light Elizabeth crunched across the dirt and mounted the station's steps, up to a low and surrounding boardwalk. I hastened to catch up, walking with wooden footfall beneath the station's overhang. Railside and beneath a lone light post she found an empty bench set against the building and sat, glancing down the starlit railway line east to the overpass and west toward the glow of New York City. As I took a seat beside her she sighed, rubbing the shins of her own boots as she peered across the tracks. Above those brick buildings the strange tower rose like a great mushroom, illuminated only from the ground on a moonless night.

"So here we are." She said as I joined her.

"Yeah."

"You didn't bring your gun." She observed quietly, pulling the blue hem of her skirt over her boots.

"You didn't bring your tears."

We were both silent then, listening to the droning machines ahead and occasional screech of an owl off in the dark. The silhouette and scatter of lit windows of buildings before us was daunting. "Between the building on the corner and the one amidst this north face of the wall seems a likely good spot to climb, but it's pretty high. I wouldn't take the walkway...too likely to be seen."

Elizabeth glanced toward a four wheeled baggage cart down upon the platform beside the tracks. "Maybe we could use that for a boost."

It looked heavy, and even in the dark the embankment steep. I sighed. Once more I was the ox.

I managed to drag the thing up the grade on the other side of the tracks but only barely, finding it a solid thing and constructed of heavy board, wooden rails and wheels of steel. It was a hell of a lot heavier than it looked. Standing off to the side of the wall, Elizabeth supervised and offered pithy suggestions but was otherwise useless. Having finally wrested the thing into place, I shoved sticks into its spokes to stop it from rolling and leaned against the wall, catching my breath.

"Come on!" Elizabeth said and I glared at her.

"Just a damned moment, please."

She started pacing about, arms crossed, fretting over the dancing of lights upon the heights above...the shadows, I thought, of people moving. "Five minutes." A voice loud and crackling announced from over the wall. Elizabeth's eyes widened. "Booker, come on!"

"Fine." I said, checking the cart steady before I climbed atop it. Barely was I able to draw my eyes over the top.

"What do you see!?" Elizabeth whispered anxiously from the ground.

Before me I saw the sides of those tall brick buildings, a gap down their darkened middle that formed a twenty foot wide alley. Its paved way ran perhaps one hundred feet to what appeared an open yard, at least two hundred feet to the tower amidst a great square. Beyond the tower I could make out the low office building we'd been in earlier at least as far again away. The place was expansive, and seeing it unobscured now, I realized Tesla's Tower had had to be at least three hundred feet tall. "The tower, a bunch of buildings and a few men walking around. You'd be impressed."

"Well, pull me up then!" She demanded, and I looked down to see her upraised hand and impatient eyes. With a clasp of her hand it I drew her up upon the cart in one fell swoop. She alighted hand upon my chest, looked about at my sudden feat and grinned. Still, she was short and couldn't yet see over. "Here." I took her by the hips and pressed her upward, allowing her to pull herself upon the gray concrete top cap. With effort I scrambled up after her. Turned back from the lights, she again admired my handiwork.

"Did you do a lot of climbing before?" She said, appreciating my shoulders.

"Once or twice. This place called Columbia." She smirked and together we peered across the yard.

The generators remained distant but were louder at this height, undamped by the walls as they had been at the station. From its perimeter Klieg lights illuminated the yard's interior. A loud pop echoed out ahead of us and a giant voice began to speak. "If I can have everyone exit the Arena, please. If we can have everyone exit the Arena, please. We're going to charge the coils in one minute. Again, it is time to exit the Arena prior to tonight's power up."

"What's going on?" She whispered. Brow furrowed, I shook my head watching them men scatter in their lab coats from the vicinity of the tower.

"Thirty seconds now, if you please." The voice announced. "Twenty...ten." The last of the men out in the yard hastened away and I could see a line across the concrete drawn in chalk. Inside the words were similarly scrawled. "RADIATION HAZARD."

"Five, four, three, two, one...mark." Ahead of us the buildings dimmed precipitously and from beyond the alley I heard the previously idling generators accelerate. Above their building's shadow I could see smoke begin to pour from stacks, while the spherical cap of the tower began to glow. Around its bottom a ring of lamps illuminated, flashing on piecemeal until they were all fully lit. I heard a pop, saw a spark from thin air, then another...and with a shearing sound from above lightning began to fly into thin air. Soon the top of the thing was crackling with a pall of electricity, illuminating the ground and frontages of the buildings below. It reminded me keenly of what I'd seen in Elizabeth's tower. It _was_ what I'd seen in Elizabeth's tower. Was this a Siphon?

"Do you feel anything?" I asked quickly, suddenly worried for my girl. From my side where she was crouching upon the wall she looked at me puzzled, but not obviously in any pain.

The cracks and flashes got louder as the distant motors ran furious and furiouser. "Five hundred horsepower." Came across the loud speakers. "Seven Fifty. Engage third and fourth alternators!" Overhead the lightning became a firestorm and the glow expanded, transforming into a luminescent doughnut about the flattened egg, shimmering and writhing as lightning rocketed randomly to large rods grounded upon each of the buildings. "Whoa!" I heard across the sound horns. Twenty five hundred, three thousand...thirty five hundred." Off to easternmost building the generators were screaming. "Four thousand. Commence transmission!"

Beneath us the earth thumped and began to hum, the whole of the ground vibrating as lightning annihilated the air above. Such was the light that I could see Elizabeth's awestruck face beside me as if it were day. From the apex of the cap I began to see color now, striations ephemerally shimmering in the air above until one shot off at unimaginable speed, upward, arcing toward the south. Another followed, a red this time, beautiful and stretching out like the Aurora Borealis, followed again and again by colors and hues like ribbons streaming on the Fourth of July. Lying there together, we were both speechless.

"It's beautiful." She finally whispered, lights shimmering and streaming in the wetness of her eyes. I could only look.

"We have resonance!" I heard a different voice call over the speaker."

"All right, then! Good latch up! We hold for an hour until Machrihanish is complete, then we'll power up to ninety five hundred for _Lusitania_. Gentlemen, remain clear of the Arena for the next hour while the antenna is in operation!"

About the tower now I could now see in an eerie luminescence that lit the grounds and not the lightning, which continued unabated. It was like the very air was on fire.

"We have to go!" Elizabeth said.

Looking at the display of raw power before us, I was having second thoughts. "Elizabeth, I don't know..."

She turned and looked with me. "Booker, this is it!"

"What, you feel a tear?" I asked as the lightning stabilized above. No longer was it arcing to the buildings, but oscillated at the top of the tower like a burning sun.

She shook her head. "No, but..." She turned and looked back at the sight with finger in hand, obviously bothered. "But...it is _odd_. I know something's here. I just feel it."

"I thought you said you didn't _feel_ anything?!"

Before I could react she slipped over the wall into a hang and dropped two feet to the alley's pavement, looking backward to me she beckoned with her hand. "Come on! It's this way."

"Jesus..." I mumbled and followed. Alighting on the ground, I ran the hundred feet to join Elizabeth at the far corner of the nearest building, not only hearing and seeing but _feeling_ the electricity in the air. At the base of this four story edifice she was looking at her finger, then looking at me. "It is, isn't it?" I looked up, then back to find her perplexed.

"No, but..." She shook her head and dropped into a crouch. Looking back to the light which threw our shadows upon the wall like a strobe, it surely seemed like a tear. It smelled like a tear.

She turned and looked into the window, which turned out to be an empty machine shop. While she was looking I spied a door open toward the office building and three men emerge with welding glasses on, making their way cautiously about the demarked circle to a pathway that lead to a low bunker at the compounds southeast corner, just beside the smoking power house. "Elizabeth!" I whispered. She dropped from where she was looking and her eyes followed mine.

"That's Tesla! She said, covering her mouth with her insulted hand.

"And Joseph." I added. "And Elliott."

Looking out upon the yard I knew that if we moved we'd be seen, but there was no other way. We had to move across the frontage of the building to our left. It was lower than the one Elizabeth had spied but had a flat face with two doors and many windows across its two stories. Looking outward I saw, besides Tesla and his cronies, various technicians making their way about the compound, many in lab coats...and some not. "I've got an idea." I said and stood. Picking a board up from the ground that looked reasonably like something a scientist might carry, I took her in tow and began to walk, shielding my eyes against the blinding discharge above.

As we walked across the windows of the laboratory I could see a handful of workers inside, each working on something with welding equipment. Upon a bench near a door I saw something else...goggles and a rack full of lab coats. I opened the door and stepped inside.

"Booker, they're not going in there!" Elizabeth whispered too loudly. Luckily for us the electrical discharge was deafening. She was standing outside looking in, consternation upon her face. I reached out with my arm and yanked her inside.

Presently we emerged with _real_ clipboards in hand, wearing the ubiquitous goggles everyone in the compound seemed to have on and dressed in white lab coats. I'd never imagined myself as a scientist, but then again, I'd never imagined flying an airship either. Now indistinguishable from Tesla's workforce, we made our way along the frontage, just in time to see the doors closing on that bunker-like one story outbuilding with a prominent sign stating " _RESTRICTED ACCESS ONLY_." Elizabeth looked at me.

I smirked. "That's what I call an invitation. Casually we walked across the pavement to the building, but seeing a man in a coat standing outside its main entrance I steered us instead for the high walled generator compound. Which was a mistake, for the sound was unyielding.

Once out of the man's sight we changed course for the south side of the facility, finding there a step down to a lower door. Descending into its shadows, Elizabeth and I came to stand fifteen feet below the surface, holding our ears though the noise had diminished considerably. In the illumination of a lone incandescent lightbulb a door lay before us. Predictably the thing was locked. We raised our goggles and Elizabeth stepped before me, looking up from the corner of her eye with a smug little grin before kneeling. "Are you certain you want to do this?"

"I _love_ doing this." She sighed, producing what looked like a tortured bobby pin from her hair. Looking back to me, she bit her lower lip, feeling her way through the tumblers with heavenward eyes until she got it. I heard a click. "Pull on the door...I can't hold it long!" At her insistence I did so, the heavy steel slab opening slowly to reveal a dimly lit service room. Looking behind us for any surveillance, I ducked inside, hastening her before me. I let the door close partway...just in case we needed a fast exit.

It was quieter in here, and as we walked past shelves of equipment and cables and components we found ourselves at a second door. This one was painted white, made of wood rather than bulkhead steel, its eye-level pane of glass frosted. Through its translucence I could see but the shadows of desks and men at work.

"What do you see?" Elizabeth whispered. I glanced to see her eyes eagerly for my answer.

"Just shadows." I took the knob to find it locked. Elizabeth smiled smugly at me and settled to her knees, again with the pin. The doorknob clicked and she looked back, insufferably pleased with herself.

I cracked it open to discover the basement of large concrete bunker, walls lined with equipment twenty feet high, gray metal cabinets covered with electrical meters and pulsing needles. Wiring ran from outside through a great gasket in the walls, hung everywhere in chain across the ceiling. Beneath me Elizabeth poked her head, peering into the brightly lit chamber. On a worktable Tesla was leaning forward with both hands, talking to Joseph and a handful of men I didn't recognize. As Tesla dictated, a bespectacled Elliot took shorthand. Amid them in the center of the chamber, beside Tesla's table and crew, burnt and damaged but for the most part intact, stood twin metal beams extending ten from the ground at the vertical, amid them a hanging central oblate egg, a standing disk three feet in diameter ten feet below it and about the braces, thick and entwining cables. Twin bulbs hung inert to the central, flattened cap's sides. It was an Oracule.

A _tear machine_.

" _Booker_..." Elizabeth said, the emotion welling in her words. Are...you seeing...what...what I'm seeing?"

"Yeah..." I answered, barely able to believe it. She _was_ a bloodhound. "So now what do we do?" Where she'd been crouching her heeled boot suddenly gave way, and in a gambit to regain her balance leant her full weight to the door. The knob escaped my hand and the thing swung wide, smashing backward with a clatter into the cinder block of the corridor wall. Out in the laboratory floor the scientists looked up from their conversation, pens stilled, dismayed eyes upon us. All I could think was _shit_.

Spilled upon the slab, Elizabeth looked up. For the longest moment the scientists were dead silent, jaws agape. Joseph's clipboard slipped from his hand where he was standing, the thing hitting the concrete with a wooden clatter, its papers spilling haphazard through the men's legs. Wafting on the breeze of a cooling fan, one sheet glided across the floor like a magic carpet and settled at Elizabeth's knees.

"Well, just don't stand there, get them!" Tesla barked, mustache twitching, eyes fixed upon us like Elizabeth's crazy flashlight. I'd seen threatening men before, men like Comstock's Handymen who I'd thought would pound me into dust.

These fellows weren't them.

Despite their bosses' order none of them moved, each instead looking to one another in their jackets and bow ties like scared rabbits. In disgust Tesla parted from the table. Gathering himself, he stomped toward us. "Elliott! Get Mr. Parsons immediately!"

"Yes, Mister Tesla." The brown haired man said and made for the concrete steps leading up.

Tesla was lean but fearless and seeing his men weren't about to act, came at us himself. "And get the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department to have them send a car over!" Halfway to us he seemed to reassess the situation, grasping for the added security of a crowbar upon an adjacent workbench. His eyes burned with fury. "You had better not move if you know what is good for you! Who are you spying for, Edison? Marconi!?"

At the outburst his acolytes cringed, a dark haired one with a thin countenance similar to their leader gathering his courage to garner a heavy book, one they'd been pouring over at the table.

From behind Tesla he approached, wielding the thing in both hands like an awkward cudgel. "Tell him, then! Tell him who you are!"

With a jaundiced eye Tesla half turned his head back to the man. Chastened, the fellow backed off.

"No!" Elizabeth exclaimed, managing to sit up upon her haunches. "We're not! We're not...not 'working' for anyone!"

"LIAR!" Tesla shouted, a Balkans accent now discernable, something I'd hardly caught from him earlier that morning. Beside him his assistant lunged, the book coming with him. By the shoulder Tesla stayed his attack. From the fellow's impression I got the distinct impression he was actually relieved.

"I say again, tell me who you are?!" Tesla demanded anew, and I got the sense we might be here all night...or at least until the coppers arrived. The door was still open behind us.

"We're not here to hurt you and we're not spies." I said, rising from the cold floor and pulling myself up by the door jam. Elizabeth's hand was still raised, her eyes averted from the book's impending blow. I took her by it and drew her to my side. Apprehensively she took shelter behind me. "Now you know how it feels." I mumbled. "At least they weren't throwing them." Meeting my gaze, her eyes narrowed.

"Dammit, Man, speak!" Tesla exploded and again the man feinted. To his dismay I grabbed him by the arm and disarmed him, tossing the heavy tome upon the nearby workbench with a sideways snap of hand.

"Booker..." Elizabeth said, eyes upon it _. The Principles of Quantum Mechanics. Rosalind Lutece._ Its cover read. At my obstinacy Tesla had raised his bar higher.

"We're unarmed..." I said with growing anger. "But don't threaten the lady again or I'll shove that bar and book up your asses."

"Booker!" Elizabeth admonished. As if in surrender she raised her hands and stepped before me, pushing me back. By now the man we'd seen guarding the entryway above was descending the concrete steps, and upon seeing us a Billy club slipped into his grasp.

"Spies, Mr. Parsons." Tesla asserted, eyes unwavering from mine. "Please detain and remove them to the Front Office where the Sheriff can take them to the jailhouse." Still fixated, he continued. "Mr. Ryan's assistants, you are. _Ryan...s_ pying upon me, no doubt for...but for _whom_!? Is there no end to man's treachery?"

Passing through scientists and technicians, calm but resolute, Parsons approached. "Sir, Miss...I am afraid you shall have to accompany me or there shall be violence." He stated in a stern voice. Braver than the rest, he reminded me to the Constabulary men in Columbia, brown hair well groomed, clean shaven. So earnestly committed to his master. He'd die to protect his rabbits.

"Look, we're not spies." I said again.

Elizabeth tugged at my jacket sleeve, looking to me with concern. "Thinking about it now, technically we are, Booker."

" _Elizabeth!"_

She pushed away from my grimace with a cautious look upon her face, brushing her hair back. "But we're not spies for your competitors...we're spies for, well, us!"

"No!" Tesla hissed. " _Ryan_ you spy for, and to think I called him friend!"

"No!" She shook her head.

"Take them away." Tesla ordered.

At the words Parsons pressed forward, grasping Elizabeth by the shoulder. Before she could react I'd grabbed the man's hand and club, eye to eye with murderous intent. "Friend, we shall come with you peaceable like but you will not lay hands on the Lady again or you will end up stone cold dead." Slowly I overpowered him, pressing so that he could feel my strength. Subtly his countenance frayed, and he knew what I said to be true.

Covering his fluster, he looked us over. "Do...you have any weapons?"

"Just a bent bobby pin." I answered, and from my side I could see Elizabeth beaming at me.

Parsons gestured toward the door with his shaking Billy club. "The door is this way. Please follow me."

Elizabeth looked at me and her face fell, but having come to terms that this was the end of the line, I took her arm in mine and we followed Parson's lead. "I'm sorry, Elizabeth. We tried." At our passage Tesla's rabbits looked upon us like a lynch mob, but with my corrosive gaze shied away. I'd seen sadness on Elizabeth in the weeks since Columbia, but not like this.

"I would suggest you retain a lawyer, Mr. Montgomery, if even that is your name." Tesla said from behind. "For you shall certainly be requiring him."

Beside me Elizabeth stopped in her tracks, eyes having trailed upon the discolored side braces and round, downward facing cap above the Oracule's stepping disc. Runs of heavy cable ran up its sides, wires flowing in and out from associated components. Her brow furrowed, focused on what looked like a bulbous coil and the fuse box beneath it. Several of the components looked recently familiar.

"Mr. Montgomery...you gave your word." Parsons hazarded, regripping his club.

"The main capacitors need to be in parallel, not series." Elizabeth announced, stepping over to the device. Aside from some obviously new parts she referred to, it looked burnt and in poor shape.

A mumble rose from the assembled men and Parsons gave me a stolid look. "Will you stop dawdling and accompany me!" He said sternly.

"What do you mean, the capacitors must be in parallel?" A voice said from behind us...Tesla's. "And what do you know of this..."

" _Tear machine_?" Elizabeth finished to a gasp from the attendant crowd. "Only that you'll damage it if you try to run it like this." She stopped, looking up to see all eyes upon her including Tesla's. Her brow furrowed. "But...you already _have_ damaged it, haven't you?" Everyone in the bunker stood in stunned disbelief, including me. In the glare of all those eyes she knelt, pulled the little blocks out and examined one.

Tesla shouted, "No, do not touch that! It is immensely dangerous!"

"2 Farads?" She said with a quizzical eye. "No wonder Mr. Ryan's wares are in such demand...that's quite beyond anything I'd seen in my books." She inserted them into the breadboard in a different order. "But I don't see why you'd think them dangerous _yet_ , Mr. Tesla." She answered with a grim look to the device. "You've only received them this morning and I highly doubt you've figured out how to power the machine from its obviously crippling damage."

"Who _are_ you?" Tesla asked, the anger in his voice replaced with sheer astonishment. "What can you... _how_ can you possible know about this generator, something that I can assure you that in the entirety of the civilized world, besides those in this chamber, _no_ one knows about?!"

She stood upright and with her clenched hand threw a heavy copper switch on the support brace. Behind her the frame shook and began to hum. For a moment she studied it. "You really did burn it out. You're going to need a new voltage regulator and spark gap generator...and maybe a lot more."

"Who are _you_?!" Tesla demanded.

With a demure grin she turned and looked up, hands clasped before her. "I'm _Elizabeth_!"

#

"But Mr. Tesla, what if she's damaged it!?" One of the men around the table finally said as he pressed forward. His lack of faith took some of the exuberance from my smile. I had to admit that I'd been pleased with myself despite being puzzled at how I could have known such a thing. I'd had my books of course and had always enjoyed subjects scientific and cryptologic, but seeing how this contraption worked so clearly in my head was just a bit eerie.

"It doesn't appear to be further damaged." Tesla said, approaching cautiously, almost in disbelief. "Young lady, may I ask again, who are you working for and how could you possibly know of this?"

My eyes found a concerned, somewhat awed fa...Booker...and I crossed my arms. "You...you wouldn't believe me, but I tell you the truth that we are only us. We...we've come here to..."

"We've come here to find out who else knew about tears." Booker said, looking to Parsons and passing to my side. My name is..."

"Booker DeWitt." I said for him. "And I am his client, Elizabeth, err, Comstock. I am a...researcher in a laboratory out west."

"And she hired me to investigate some, uh..."

"Readings." I nodded.

"That she's been, uh, getting from her..." He was so endearing I thought, struggling with the words.

"From my equipment." I turned, panning across the Oracule and the panoply of wiring about it, then back to Tesla and his cohort. After a moment I realized I was holding my finger. "I'd detected indications of something impossible, quite impossible." I said. "Of...of a natural shear in the ether. Such things should not occur naturally, at least."

" _You_ are a _scientist_?" Tesla said as he approached.

"A _woman_?" Another said and hushed whispers and mumbles erupted.

Tesla slapped the wooden table before them, coming within a foot of Booker and me. I felt Booker take my hand, and I looked at him and smiled. "By my crude detection apparatus," I said, thinking of my pinkie. "It seemed to be east, and after a bit of research its location became a foregone conclusion."

"Whose laboratory do you work for?!" Tesla demanded.

"Her own." Booker said. "But it is not privately funded and we shall not divulge the patrons."

"A female running a research laboratory?" One of Tesla's scientist groused. "Preposterous...you, Sir, are full of _lies_. You expect us not only to swallow that fabrication, but believe that you have an instrumented laboratory capable of detecting a dimensional breach when even we, the foremost experts from the entire globe have nothing of the sort?"

I noticed Tesla seems to hedge at that thought, and let it sit for a moment before responding. It was odd to before so many people...so many men, and found myself bunching the fore of my skirt with nervous hands. "And how else might you explain our presence? Or my..." I paused, looking again at the machine's components, knowing somehow how this thing worked. "Knowledge of the device's inner workings?"

Tesla nodded to Parsons and the man stepped to his side. "Tommy, you shall no longer be required. Please ensure the door these people...our guests...entered through is secured." For a moment Parsons seemed to protest but Tesla's stern intent sent him back down the corridor toward our point of entry. "And please, have Elliott ring the Sheriff and inform him that the patrolmen will not be necessary."

"Yes, Mr. Tesla." He said, took through the door and disappeared.

Amid the room was again silence. "Mr. DeWitt. Miss Comstock. These are your true names?"

Beside me Booker sighed and with a glance I admonished him. "They are, indeed, Mister Tesla. Your fame proceeds you."

"But not enough to simply introduce yourselves this morning." He said with crossed arms and suspicious eyes.

"Would you have believed us, had we done so?" I'd crossed my own, feeling yet the glare of the men. In the scant weeks I'd been in New York I'd become aware to the plight of women, nearly second class citizens unable to participate formally in politics, but I'd not had insight to the sense of scorn when those boundaries were broken. "And I find it surprising that you feel a woman incapable of presiding over a laboratory, particularly when a woman was the one who created _this_." I ran my fingertips across the Oracule's closer vertical.

"How can you possibly know about Rosalind?" Tesla looked as though he'd seen a ghost.

I didn't have a reasonable response, or should I say lie. Lacking one I chose the truth. "Because she was my mentor."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty." I answered with undue confidence.

"What you say is inexcusable, girl. You expect me to believe this when you would have been but a babe when she..." He hesitated. "She perished. You mock me, and her memory."

"No." I said, angst surely upon my face. Booker knew what I was thinking for his eyes widened and he shook his head 'no.' Though I wished that I could simply tell them the truth, I knew Booker was right...the truth was too strange. "I promise you, all of you..." I said, glancing about to the men whose eyes were still upon me, especially Tesla. "I do not dishonor the woman's name...her legacy is as important to me as you." My appeal did not seem to have the weight I'd hoped, so, feeling pressed, I made my way to the workbench and retrieved the woman's book.

"What I mean..." I said, opening its cover, "Was that as a young girl I discovered her book in..." I glanced to Booker, scrambling desperately for my next words. "In my father's library. I fell in love with it." About me the men's expressions hadn't changed, though from nearby Booker egged me on. "I've always loved matters of the physical and natural sciences, particularly these new fields of..." I glanced about. "Electronics and...Quantum Mechanics." As I said the latter Tesla ripped the text from my hands, shocking me.

"A young woman as you would never be so equipped."

"Then explain to me how I know about _this_?" I looked to the machine and ran my fingers over its frame. "Or this..."

I walked toward the wall, parting the scientists. Amid their condemnatory eyes I strode up to a green chalkboard. Taking chalk in hand I thought for a moment, looking back to the book. With all those eyes upon me I nearly panicked, trying to remember what I'd been so eager to do. Then it came to me, like out of the fog, crystallizing clearly in my mind's eye like a photograph.

I turned and wrote ' **Ψ** ', scrawling out _equals_ and after it then the tortured mathematical operators, constants and variables of Rosalind Lutece's _Wave Function_. The oddest thing is, I _understood_ it. "This looks impressive but is rather not, for it is not particularly powerful. In fact, it simply describes the behavior of a single electron bound in a hydrogen like atom. The solution is, however, analytical, meaning it can be precisely calculated, though the solution itself is probabilistic rather than specific. In other words, the best we can know of an electron, the most elementary of quantum particles, is its distribution in space and time as a consequence of conservation of energy." I then scrawled another set of equations using operators I understood but only once I'd written them down. "However, using Dossler n-dimensional matrix notation and imagining each potential position of that electron in an orthogonal rotation into a complex dimension normally inaccessible to an observer constrained to what might be called a "brane," one can come up with a solution that shows the distribution patterns of the electron, what you might call _shells_ , are actually summarizations of an orbiting particle over the sum of "n" interacting branes that provide the 'depth,' or..." I put the chalk down. "What we'd call universes."

I turned and looked at them. "Because the electron is small and to a greater degree than most elementary particles able to move off its brane. What Rosalind discovered was that with the concerted application of high electrical voltage, parallel branes normally inaccessible to one another could be drawn together and superimposed. The electron can naturally travel between branes and with some effort such as Lutece's, so might more massive particle systems." I looked at the tear machine. "Including us."

Tesla had stopped breathing. After a moment I heard him continue. "Gentlemen, would you be so kind as to leave us for a moment?" With their eyes similarly wide at my monologue, none of them moved. "Please." He reiterated. As if woken from a trance the scientists began to whisper and mumble, turning one by one and heading for the stairs Parsons had taken. "Willie, Alfred, Joseph, please remain."

"Where the hell did that come from?" Booker mumbled beneath his breath as he attended my side, eyes as bewildered as the others. I glanced at him, unable to still the worry because I had no earthly idea. Yet there it was, and in my mind I surely understood it. _More_ than understood it. Seeing the inconsonance in my face, Booker cocked his head.

Thoughts flew fast now, understandings that I questioned whether or not were my own. What was 'my own?' I'd read books my whole life, and until now I'd never quite understood that when I read them a time or two, I just _knew_ them. Not just knew, but _understood_. I'd learned to draw and paint from books from a young age, learned the easy talent of picking locks that seemed so befuddling yet invaluable to Booker. I'd taught myself cryptography and unlocked hidden codes in newspapers from all over the world. I'd read a book on Quantum Mechanics and not only understood it, but was able to act upon it and deliver scholarly lectures. Only now it dawned upon me that perhaps others like Booker could _not_. And I knew how to build a tear machine, or at least potentially fix one that someone else had built.

What _was_ I?

It was an answer I knew for the word began with an 'S,' and I didn't want to think of it further. I looked at Booker, his brow still distressed because he didn't understand how wrong he'd been.

I heard the door close and with Tesla and his three we were alone. "How do you know that?" The lanky scientist asked. "The brightest minds in the world have looked at that book and come up little more than babbling monkeys, yet you crystallize...encapsulate hundreds of pages of opaque Lutece speak and equations into a few sentences." Looking downward, his eyes found my finger.

"I suppose I've always been gifted." I said quietly, putting the 'thing' away, feeling as I had in our exodus of the Monument that I was somehow not quite human. _No._ I told myself. I was different. And, looking at Booker, I knew he loved me...maybe more than anything.

"What do you know about the tear machine, and how?"

"Other than it being an interdimensional gateway?" I said, turning back to them. Again Tesla looked at as though the very words I'd said were lightning. Needing a more concrete answer, I stepped to the machine's side brace and knelt. "This isn't of the newest manufacture." I said, noting some of the singed wiring and components having manufacture dates in the late 1880s.

"As I alluded to earlier, we have been refurbishing it." Tesla said stiffly. "It came into our possession but...a year ago...from an _anonymous_ donor. Along with a considerable allotment of funding to plumb its function and, if possible, conduct its restoration."

As he spoke I'd come to focus on what looked like a kinetoscope seemly attached to that right brace of the device by an intricate array of wiring. Glancing into its window, I found it to have two external thumbwheels that seemed to twist in latitude and longitude. A third wheel was labeled "Elevation." For some reason the numbers entered seemed oddly familiar, though I could not place my finger upon why. I pulled back and looked at Booker, who had by now approached, standing at my side. Still perplexed, I turned to Tesla and his men. "Well, it is in dismal condition, but I do think I might be able to help you bring it back to function, if that is, you would have a woman to work with you."

There were hushed whispers now, and Tesla with furrowed brow examined me. "You understand this so-called "Lutece Mechanics?"

" _Quantum_ Mechanics, yes." I said, realizing as I spoke that the very name was anachronistic. At least here in Booker's world. _My_ world, I thought. "Which replaces on a small scale what used to be called _Classical_ Mechanics." Still they looked at me. "But the workings of this machine have little to do with that. From what I can see..." And what I _knew_ , looking at the device. "It is a straightforward matter of applied electrostatics. Seeing the marvel outside, I would believe your benefactor's trust in you to be well placed. Still, whatever you did to the machine, its more delicate components are burned out and must be replaced. The design should still work once the damaged bits are substituted."

"Madame Lutece was apparently not very good at documentation. We have replaced _several_ components, yet a return to operability eludes us." Joseph said.

"Well I can assure you that in its present state your device will not power tonight because Mr. DeWitt and myself are put upon and tired. What is the contraption upon the side?" I said, glancing again toward the kinetoscope.

"My Dear, as of this moment we were hoping you might tell us. I assure you..." Joseph said, fiddling with his sideburn as he followed my gaze. "That our efforts, though we should wish them confident, are but cursory. An attempt to gain understanding."

"You seem to have attempted 'understanding' at an earlier date and failed." I observed to the silence of the room.

The black haired man Tesla had called Willie spoke. "We...we ran the machine yesterday morning for several hours as part of a trial. We were trying to see how our repairs would hold. Unfortunately the result is before you."

"And before that?" I asked. Everyone including Booker looked to Tesla.

"We had not run it, and in fact to the best of our knowledge it had not been run in decades...though we had been _preparing_ to. After months of delving Joseph, Willie and Alfred had managed to make inroads on the electrical continuity, and from the readings we had done, our inner circle here had an inkling of what we were attempting. With the benefit of our patron's donated funds, we'd replaced the electronics. Joseph and I had conducted the pre-power runs and everything seemed in order. But in truth we had no idea..." For a moment Tesla stopped, face troubled. "No idea of what to expect. With the holiday at hand and families to spend time with, we'd decided to call it an early day with the intent to implement our plans the following day. When we returned Friday morning we found to our horror the machine half-melted."

His thumb went to his chin and he seemed lost in thought. "My watchman, Parsons, related that there had been an electrical disturbance in the bunker that night but no signs of fire. Seeing as he was not allowed to enter without Joseph or Alfred or Willie present..." His silence allowed us to draw our own conclusions.

"So, Tesla..." Booker interrupted, drawing the men's attention. "I'm sorry about your experiment, but it's late. Since you've called the cops off of us, just exactly what are we getting at here?"

Tesla's eyes met his, then slipped to mine. "I suppose I would be offering this young lady gainful employment."

#

I didn't know how late it was when Joseph dropped us off at Hapgood's parking lot, but as his Model T clattered before the darkened buildings I could swear I saw light in the east. Joseph was still looking at us warily as I helped Elizabeth out. She thanked me and with gratitude we both turned to our driver. The one thing I hadn't expected at the beginning of our nocturnal foray had been a cordial trip back to our accommodations courtesy of the people we'd burgled.

"Until tomorrow." Joseph said, tipping his bowler with that same mix of disbelief he'd evinced ever since Elizabeth had humiliated every man in the room including me. I sensed that he wanted to say something, not so much to me as to her, an apology perhaps.

As his vehicle disappeared down the road and tail lights turned, I felt Elizabeth take my hand. She'd been quiet since the evening's fireworks and now seemed so very tired. I was worried for her. "You got what you wanted. Why so quiet?" I said, walking together with her up the steps to the boardwalk outside the bungalows. As we surmounted its inches I could feel the breeze at my back blowing out to sea, could hear the gentle wash of the waves a hundred feet below. In the east the moon was peeking above the waves, just to the left of the Pavilion that obscured the growing monolith down the beach.

"Because you haven't said a word since we left the compound." I felt her hand tighten upon mine and she looked up at me, the light of the rising moon caught in her gaze.

"It's kind of hard to say anything after that, don't you think?" In truth I was still reeling at her tour de force down in the bunker. "How do you even _know_ all that?" She was holding her hand like she might lose me. I didn't understand what she'd told those men, but I knew enough of human nature to decide neither did they.

"I'm...I'm sorry." She answered as we made our way around to our lodging. "Sometimes I can't help myself. I'm not even certain how I know them...these things." I didn't want to tell her how I really felt, how proud of her I was but how numbingly ignorant her brilliance had made me feel. I remembered back to my childhood in the one room schoolhouse I'd attended for a time, the primers and Bibles that had been our only texts. Rote memorization, counting...wishing I were somewhere else on a hot, summer prairie afternoon. Then being at home and wishing to God I was back there. Even as her father, how could I be worthy of a girl like her? How could I lo... I killed the thought dead.

"Booker?" She said, voice rising. I looked down to feel her hands in mine, eyes with mine. I tried not to let her see just how much that brilliance had seared my soul.

"We're here." I said, realizing we'd stopped before our door. I opened it and she entered, turning to wait for me. In her bones she knew something was wrong. I wanted to say something, to tell her how I felt, but I knew that in doing so my inadequacy would be laid bare. I'd saved her from Comstock, but I'd never considered that eventually I might have to save her from myself. Behind me I closed the door and turned on the lights. "I'll turn down the bed."

Seeing my face, she came to me and hugged me. "Booker..." She didn't say anything else for a long time. Against the cool let in from the night, with her head upon my chest she felt so very warm. "Please don't be mad at me. I'm sorry. I _shouldn't_ have."

"You did what you had to." I sighed. "So this job, you're serious about helping them?"

She glanced upward to me, sitting down upon the peeled sheets of the bed with my hands still in hers. As women do with the subtlest of tugs she brought me to her side, her insulted hand rising to brush my hair...eyes fraught with concern. "What would you have me do?" She asked. "We _need_ the money and he's offering fifty dollars a week. I'd have to be cra..."

"You don't have to do this. We can go." I answered tersely, pushing the burning coals back into the recesses of my mind. "Look, I have a bad feeling about this. You cannot have forgotten what we've only just been through! What could you possibly hope to achieve?"

Her hand kept to mine, though the thought made her uneasy. "I can't help what I feel." She said. "And I want to understand. I...I want to know how it all works, why I was like I was." She stopped, considering the thought. "And why I'm like I am."

"So you can figure out how to do what you did before."

"No!" She said too loudly. Initially incensed, her face turned conciliatory. Absently she was toying with her finger. "M...maybe. What if I'm..."

I took her into my arms and hugged her anew. "I'll never be able to know what it is like to have the gift you do, but I remember what Columbia was like. I remember that elevator too, and that damned...bird...thing. And I remember..."

She pushed back, looking up to me with narrowed eyes. Booker, you remember _what_?"

Of course she didn't know. _She_ hadn't been there...only all of her other _possibles_ like some sort of Elizabethan nightmare in blue and white. I'd never told her and I wasn't about to. "I'm going to wash up, but if you want this I suppose maybe it will pay our way to Paris." I kissed her upon the forehead and glanced to the bed. "I just think you're playing with fire."


	8. Eight is for Octopus

**8\. Eight is for "Octopus" - Thursday, August 1** **st** **, 1912**

"So I gather that you were in the Army, DeWitt?" Parsons asked, looking up from his lunch tray across our cafeteria table. About us at the other benches dozens of Tesla's workers ate, though only Parsons and myself from the scientist's security men. It was just before noon and the sun was high, the shadows outside slim...another hot, clear, mid-summer Long Island day. Out the windows I could see the grass blowing alongside the driveway, the tree line emerald across the southern fields against a cloudless blue. I'd been looking for her to walk in, of course, just like I had the day before, even though she'd said she'd likely not be able to join me. I'd see her tonight, I figured, supposing that uneventful days manning a gate shack had to be better than starving to death.

"Yeah." I answered. "You also?" Someone laughed too loudly down the table and I looked his way, finding a broad man in dungarees chortling with his mates.

"No, I am afraid not, but I did serve with the Pennsylvania State Police and the New York City Police Department for a good many years. Might I ask where?"

" _Where_?" I puzzled with an absent fork stir of my food.

"Where did you serve?" He clarified, sawing at a fork-skewered piece of chicken with his dull steel knife. "With your high-wire introduction the other night, you came across as having a martial demeanor to more than just me. I was wondering where you might have nurtured it."

"The Philippines." I answered tersely, not bothering with the silverware as I inhaled my own piece of fowl. "Before that I was in the Cavalry for a time."

"The _Philippines_?" He said, evincing a look of distaste. "Sorry to hear that, my friend. Awful business. But you said also the ' _Cavalry_ '?"

I nodded. "Seventh Cavalry."

" _The_ Seventh Cavalry? Not Little Bighorn, I suppose? He chuckled as did a handful of eavesdropping electricians alongside him.

"Not hardly." I said, giving them all the eye. "But I was at Wounded Knee." Their amused grins remained unchanged, telling me they had no idea where that place was, nor its significance. Maybe I didn't either. In Columbia, Wounded Knee had been a watershed. I'd despised myself for it, but there... _there_ it had become the _defining_ moment upon which everything hinged...not for any real reason other than that I... _Comstock..._ had wanted everyone to know what a great he'd been. To the rest of the world though, it was nothing more than a forgotten footnote...dead bodies strewn amid the snow. "Why so interested, and, if you don't mind me asking, how you came to be here?"

"I ask because I would swear I know your face from somewhere, but the happenstance eludes me." Parsons seemed to think for a moment, taking a bit of his potatoes before continuing. "Well, I told you I served with Pennsylvania's finest." I saw him hesitate, only an ephemeral thought flashing through his mind, but I knew enough about people to see something was there. "Then a few years ago my wife and I decided to move from Pittsburgh and try our luck there. I spent a few years working in the Bronx and then Manhattan. I suppose I was inspired by Commissioner Roosevelt's legacy. I thought that perhaps I might make a difference."

"From your presence here, I would estimate that you discovered _not_?"

"Perhaps it was not the paragon of policing I might have hoped for, but all and all the Department tried. There were other...complications." He set his fork down and glanced me in the eye. "I was tasked as part of a team investigating a series of brutal killings in the Harlem area. Killings that led back to an incestuous relationship between certain criminal elements and what I later found to be corrupt city officials. Some in the police force. When I tried to expose these unseemly dealings to my superiors, my life and my family's lives were threatened. A good friend of mine, one who was tied into the internal dealings of the cabal of men who were the force behind the Force, recommended that I leave the city. I'd never taken his word for granted, and though I felt a duty to my Precinct I also had an obligation to Carol and my girls. I'd made the acquaintance of Mr. Tesla when he was still working out of his Hudson Street laboratory. He was looking for assurance and security, and in a way so was I." Beside the fork he placed his knife neatly at a forty five degree angle across the corner of his tray. "It has been a mutually beneficial arrangement."

"You have a wife?" I said, feeling a sinking in the pit of my stomach, having so recently contemplated killing the man. How many of Comstock's followers had had families? How many of _Aguinaldo's_? I knew about Bigfoot's...for I'd seen them all. "Daughters?"

"Yes." We've been married thirteen years now, and every other year a girl." He chuckled. "I've five, little blue eyed toe heads aged twelve to two, all in dresses like their mother." He dabbed his mouth with the white linen of his napkin.

"That's a lot of mouths to feed. I'm surprised you make ends meet on the slim pickings Mr. "Mutually Beneficial" provides."

Though the smile remained his brow tensed. "Your salary I suppose we're commenting on? I should think you would know that new hires aren't going to receive handsome compensation."

"It seems Eliza...Miss Comstock has." I countered.

"That is Mr. Tesla's decision, Mr. DeWitt. Not mine. I believe it was obvious the other night that her talents were...considerable. Mr. Tesla has been struggling with several intractable problems here at Wardenclyffe, puzzles I barely comprehend. She is a woman, true, and Nikola has his opinions on that matter, but if she can be of genuine help then he shall pay." He placed the napkin on the table, behind him one of Tesla's mechanics hazarding us with curled mustache and brooding eyes as he took his gray steel tray to the wash. "Prove yourself here and I shall ensure your compensation improves."

My ears perked up. "I must sound ungrateful, but I promise you I am not. And...I'm sorry about the other night...how we met. You'd have had every right to shoot us both, but frankly it wasn't my idea."

"Not your idea? To break in and eavesdrop?"

I shook my head. "Hers."

He cast a rather smug look over his mug before taking a long swig of coffee. "Mr. Tesla prefers that we do not carry sidearms, so you are lucky. Seeing as I have a brood, I also find it difficult to lay a truncheon upon a young lady."

"Indeed." I said, figuring that I'd been wrong about the guns. What kind of security men didn't carry guns?

"So, what is the girl's interest here?" He asked, putting the coffee cup down upon the table's white wood and leaning back. "This business about being spies...what laboratory could you possibly be from?"

I looked to my left and right, seeing empty seats on the bench where previously interested parties had been. "Thomas." I said, looking him in the eye. "The reason we didn't tell Tesla about Miss Comstock's laboratory is..." I sighed. "Is because there is _no_ laboratory, and even had I tried I stop her, I would have been unable for long to restrain the woman."

"If there is not a laboratory..."

"She can _feel_ them, Thomas. Naturally. It's like...hearing to her...feeling. Like a moth to a flame, she can _feel_ the machine in operation."

Parsons didn't speak for a moment but I saw in his face the suspicion of witchcraft. Eventually he nodded to the door. "Perhaps we should continue our survey of the facilities?"

#

Parsons escorted me out into the yard through the cafeteria's wooden back door. Over the past two days I'd discovered a lot of things about Wardenclyffe, or _Radio City,_ as Tesla's people liked to call it. One was that my favorite place, the Oersted Cafeteria, was an adjunct to the office building, the space that had hosted our meeting between Tesla and Ryan the Tesla three days before. The compound itself was some seven hundred feet in length and width, roughly square and hemmed in by the east-west country road to its south and Long Island Railroad right-of-way to the north. About its periphery buildings rose, butted up against the wall Elizabeth and I had surmounted.

Tesla had greeted us just after noon the day before, elated over the prospect of Elizabeth joining him. She'd been excited and amid her effusive thanks he'd been cordial to me, but I knew my place. After discussing with Elizabeth his expectations, particularly how he envisioned her fitting into his researches, Tesla had bundled her off to the so called 'Bunker' while Parsons was given the task of showing the afterthought his new 'job.' The subsequent tour had lasted a few hours, mostly the twin flagpoles and front gatehouse with the remainder deferred. Even though the separation had been short hours, every one of them I felt apart from her.

As we walked Parsons informed me that Tesla employed about one hundred and fifty people in his installation, including guards to keep people away. He'd paused on the last one, smirking at the irony. Apparently Tesla feared that someone might steal some of his inventions and he wished to keep his affairs quiet. At that point I thought I might get a few hours more in the guard shack out front, watching cows out in the pasture and checking guest lists for the occasional arrival as I had the previous afternoon and morning. I was, however, in for a surprise.

"Now that you have the early morning routine of checking the laboratory's people in as they arrive, Mr. DeWitt, I believe it is time to follow up with some introductions."

"You can call me Booker." I said, eyes gazing upward along the clean dark spars of the tower of fire.

"Like the _colored_ fellow?"

I nodded. "Yeah, like him."

"Hmmm." Parsons said, glancing towards a coterie of white coats making their way from the southeastern building toward the cafeteria. "An interesting name. Those are our radiant power experts, by the way. The dark haired man is Johnnison, the one beside him with the tight mustache is Hartmann...both scientists. Meyer and Alfie Peters round them out, and both of them are great men in their fields, or so I hear." The latter I recognized from the night before...Alfred." We approached and Parsons introduced me, the men cordial but in a manner suggestion they wished minimal delay. They headed on their way as did we.

Glancing across the surrounding brick buildings I found frontages of broad windows, the majority levered open for ventilation in the rising morning warmth. Inside these buildings I could see craftsmen hard at work and heard the barrage of fans, reminding me vaguely of Finkton. Though much larger, Finkton hadn't had this many people, at least while we'd been there, and I couldn't help but be impressed. Here bright men found employ, striving under this one man's vision to build something I could barely fathom. I wondered as I walked alongside Parsons if my other 'self' might have.

"The office building used to be the old machine shop before we outgrew it." He continued, gesturing with thumb over shoulder back toward the cafeteria. "It was the original building, a lone building, designed by Stanford White of Manhattan around the turn of the century. The newer structures..." His eyes panned one by one to the surrounding edifices that loomed above our shoulders. "Are of more recent design. He and Mister Tesla have participated in several efforts together, and when the second tower went up Mr. White was keen to be involved, as was Mr. Crowe."

I looked at the octagonal trestle and ball gleaming above it in the sun. " _Second_ tower?"

"Indeed." Parsons said, pointing toward the foundation. "That is not the first, and in fact the whole of the old office building was uprooted and moved to a more peripheral location several years ago in order to open up the center of the compound."

"For this _second_ tower?" I reiterated, presuming without asking that there had been a first.

"Precisely. This land was donated to us by Peter Warden, the founder of Wardenclyffe...oh..." He smirked. "What you know today as Shoreham Village. I heard from Joseph that was where you were staying?"

"We are." I confirmed, feeling even now the _Bungalows_ draining the green lifeblood from our pockets.

"I'm not particularly keen on this whole matter, so if my facts are somewhat off, do forgive me. I believe about 1890 the Long Island Railroad announced a planned expansion north along the Sound...the Wading River Branch. Mr. Warden was an Ohio banker at the time, and with the announcement saw an opportunity. He bought up extensive landholdings in and around the old area of what is now Woodville Road to develop a residential community, a community that in an example of extreme humility he chose to name Wardenclyffe."

"At the time Mr. Tesla had just returned to New York City from Colorado Springs, and seeking a locus or attraction for his new community, indeed perhaps some free advertising in the papers, he invited Nikola to Wardenclyffe as the site for an experimental laboratory. For Mr. Tesla, I suppose two hundred acres of land for the endeavor was difficult to pass on and with the project gathering steam, the Boss convinced a syndicate of New York bankers to finance the project."

"So, uh, just what is this all about?" I asked hands in pockets. A pair of bearded men in white coats walked by, Parsons waving to them in their passing, the kind of easy camaraderie I'd not had since my time in the Army had ended.

"Well, again I am the man's security, not one of his scientists, but this tower, and it has been widely published in the papers..." Papers, I could tell by Parson's countenance, that he presupposed I did not take. "Is one of a growing number of similar aerials transmitting information and electricity wirelessly around the world. The other night we completed a transmission to Scotland and an airship over the North Atlantic bound for Boston...final proof that the age of radiant power and communications are at hand."

"And what advantage is that?" I asked, wondering why I'd never heard of this. The scheme seemed impressive, but I supposed all papers looked the same from at bottom of a bottle. We'd approached a building to the southeast corner of the compound and Parsons held the door for me. Above it a sign read _"Drawings and Prototyping._ "

"Airships must carry fuel, fuel that must be lofted either by equal buoyancies of hydrogen gas or helium here in the States. Take away the need to loft that gas, enable compact and lightweight polyphaser induction motors such as Mr. Tesla has continued to perfect, then the lifting capacity and economy of these vessels becomes exponentially greater, as does their speed and efficiency. By extension seagoing vessels might no longer need carry heavy fuel oil, and trucks and automobiles be freed of the need to fuel. Even the aero plane, that modern wonder, could be made an order of magnitude more efficient and able to carry practicable loads with the elimination of its bulky power plant. A new age of transportation dawns."

The Prototyping building was four stories tall and nicely lined by windows, similar to the others constructed entirely of red brick with tan sandstone quoin work on the corners. Inside was a short corridor which opened to a side gallery of drafting tables, table at which dozens of men were hard at work pouring over drawings. Parsons had been taking me down the center but saw my distraction. "Our draftsmen, Mr. DeWitt. Mr. Howard is their supervisor." Upon one of their angled tables, a slab of polished wood three five feet across by three feet high, I spied the clean lines of a tower.

The lighthouse.

The man stood and offered his hand. "James Howard. A pleasure, Sir."

"Booker DeWitt." I answered, still more focused upon the drawings than the person. I caught myself and met his gaze. "What are they working on, if you don't mind me asking?" My empty hand slipped from pocket to hip, and in his grasp I felt the subtle sting from my beneath the bandage. Columbia had been but three weeks ago. It seemed like forever but didn't feel like it.

"The North Resonator." Howard informed. "To be the grandest aerial of them all and our first commercial plant here in the States...commissioned by no less than Mr. Morgan himself. Now that we have proven connectivity and power transmissivity without doubt and commercial operations are at hand, all that matters is to scale up."

"Mr. _Morgan_?" I said. "Scale up? And why along the sea?" I asked, thinking back to the crash of waves and Elizabeth who'd been with me. A billion versions of this beacon flashed through my waking mind.

"Are you quite all right, Mr. DeWitt?" Howard asked, and I realized my misgivings had colored my expression. I saw both him and Parsons glancing at my bandage.

"Uh, fine..." I answered, shaking it off. "A little injury from a couple of weeks ago."

"You asked about Mr. Morgan." Parsons answered. "Pierpont is in fact our main backer, although there are others such as Mr. Astor and Mr. Westinghouse. The answer to your second question is, for reasons known only to Tesla's cabal, unfortunately not to lowly bludgeons like me. All I know is that the original impetus with which this scheme was sold was upon the idea of wireless, that is, to flash stock market reports and information worldwide...even conversations by voice. Now that the transmission of power is a reality, all that remains is for Mr. Tesla and the New York Cartel to figure out where to place the meter."

"The meter?"

"The power meter, Mr. DeWitt. For billing." Parsons smirked. "Our benefactors are quite is keen on that one."

"Oh." I said.

We said goodbye to Howard and passed into a crafting shop, wherein men were working with clay and shaving out originals for what I presumed to be molds. A scale of the Lighthouse stood at the center of the room upon a Dias, ten feet tall and in rendered in fabulous detail. Unlike the tower outside which was but a wooden framework, this octagonal ziggurat was, by the tiny human figures at its scaled doors and multitude of elegant glass windows upon its sides, at least twenty stories tall...every bit as tall as the tower if not more. About its lower extents it was washed in white, windows trimmed in gold, about its top third a black ring beneath the golden dome. The dome itself was pocked evenly with small hemispherical blisters. It was déjà vu.

"This building is one that you will be paying a considerable bit of attention to in the night rounds." He pointed to a vertical safe pressed against the brickwork. "All of the primary drawings are set into security for the night, then withdrawn by handbill for the day's work. This is very important, for Mr. Tesla has only recently discovered interest in patents and his attorneys are busy in harried nights protecting one by one his discoveries. However, many yet remain unprotected. Therefore this secrecy is paramount."

I was still thinking about the Lighthouse when we stepped out into the compound anew, pointing across to the west. "That building over there is our materials warehouse and commercial receiving point. Parts and main components are delivered either by train or truck at the loading docks out back. There is a short rail spur to the west that leads to it also." Motioning ahead, he pointed to the taller building backed outside the compound walls by what I could now see as a mound of black. "That's the alternator house where our power is produced." We continued to walk until he approached the open doors.

Inside two large boilers were running, the source of the plume of black smoke rising into the sky above. "This is Arliegh Burgess, our plant foreman. "Arliegh, Mr. Booker DeWitt, our new gateman."

"Pleasure to meet you, DeWitt." The gray haired man said. Portly but not obese, Burgess had dungarees on and a thin blue striped shirt beneath, his sleeves rolled up much like his similarly gray mustache. Brown eyes lingered upon me beneath his railroad engineer's cap.

I reached out and shook his hand. "Tell him about the plant, Arleigh."

Burgess crossed his arms, looking back at the two shirtless lads hopping coal into one of the open boiler furnaces. "Four 1000 kW Westinghouse alternators..." The man said, obviously proud. It wasn't a railroad engine but neither again did the man have to travel, I supposed. "They power the entire compound system including the Resonator. Back behind them with the big vents, them's sixteen large oil-filled transformers...that's our high voltage supply. The tanks about us on the walls, those are steel and house the condensers. The other boxes contain the regulating coils."

This was all so much gibberish to me, but I nodded like I knew what they were talking about anyway. As the day before, the noise was terrific. "We've been running power transmission during the day and messaging at night for night on two years now. I ain't no Tesla, but I hear 'em sayin' it works best that way. Only problem is the neighbors, but we'll be done with and able to broadcast daytime when the new plant opens up in six months."

"Six months?" I asked. "You mean the one on the shore?"

Looking to Parsons, Arleigh glanced back to me and nodded. "Seen it, eh? Well, yes. Turns out we need considerable cooling for what we're going to be doing and the sea will give it to us. Something else too, something about the ocean being a resonator, but like I said, I ain't no scientist."

"Thank you, Arleigh. I just wanted you to know that if you see Mr. DeWitt around, he's new on the payroll. Strong background with the military and Pinkerton, though, so you'll be in good hands."

"Good." He said, looking me in the eye. "Make sure you keep those damned kids off the concrete down by the beach. Every time I go down to the site the pads we've just poured have them initials and such on them."

As we departed the boys looked up and I wondered if they knew something of the matter. The engineer turned back to them and they resumed shoveling. We headed across the yard diagonal where he showed me the warehouses he'd pointed out before. "How'd you know about the Pinkertons?" I asked as we entered.

"I have friends in the City still. I was able to find a few rudimentary items out about you. I trust we'll have no issues such as you encountered there, here?"

"No." I said. I even meant it.

"This is where we store our components." Inside long shelves were lined with crates, some open and showing turbines and dynamos and coils of electrical cable. Mostly however the shelves were filled with iron pipework. Racks of it. Ahead a manager looked at us as a horse drawn wagon was being loaded with the stuff.

"What's that?" I asked. Parsons looked at the long pipes, each eight inches in diameter and solid, delivering me a smug smile. He shrugged. "All that I know is that it goes underground."

"Underground?" I asked.

"Yes, Mr. DeWitt." He said. "I know this might be surprising, but much as you and your ward, Wardenclyffe is an iceberg. He paused for effect before looking into my eyes and handing me a truncheon...the bulk of what happens here one can only dimly see."

#

"Uh, Miss Comstock..." Joseph interrupted from the seat beside me. "Are you _certain_ you want to do that?" I looked upward beside him, kneeling on the laboratory floor in the green skirt Booker had purchased for me a week before, boot toes askew upon the concrete and finding my ensemble every bit as uncomfortable as ever, though in the air of the spinning fans above it was perhaps not so stifling. It was, however, rather hard upon the knees.

The blouse had not grown on me, and as I batted its ruffles away I cocked my head and smirked, brushing my hair aside as I did so. With gloved fingertips I detached tie by tie a roasted eighth inch gauge insulated copper wire along the Tear Machine's left brace. "I don't see why I shouldn't." I said, feeling a pout on my lips. "It's not holding current."

"But we _checked_ it on the voltmeter the other day and it _was_." He protested, drawing the gaze of one of the scientists, Harvey Meyer I'd heard him called, from where he was slaving away over a relay at the workbench. Joseph Randall was a smallish man, at least compared to Booker who was my yardstick. He was slim and dark haired as Tesla but round of face, of gentle demeanor but as I'd found over the last two days somewhat obstinate. He'd studied the discipline of Electromagnetics and power at some place called Princeton for several years before working for someone named Edison and seemed to worship Tesla like the scientists who'd worked on me had worshiped my "Father."

I plucked the remainder of the wire aside and threw it across atop the smooth oaken surface of the nearby workbench, casting as I did so a little smirk his way. "Then you did a poor job."

Behind him Harvey chuckled and Joseph seemed less than amused by my tease. I decided to speak less and work more. With the wire removed and discarded I stood and bit my lower lip, thumb to chin as I examined the contraption, a big "U" with a flattened half sphere with cylinders about it suspended amidst its twin "I" beams. Beside me Joseph sighed and poured again over the 'Book,' as they called it, open to Lutece's Chapter 12 on 'manifold dimensional sheaths.' At its side lay a loose set of diagrams on drafting paper, delicate and brittle and probably dating from the time of the Pharaohs.

"Can you make out what that circuit connects to?" I asked, attending his side, my gloved fingertip tracing a wire from a grounding point. He glanced to it and somehow I realized he'd never worked with a woman before. It was an awkward feeling, I supposed, as aside from Booker I'd never worked with a man...let alone several.

"Do you mind me asking a question, Miss Comstock?" He said, gaze hovering on my gloved appendage.

"Not if you don't mind getting an unwelcome answer." I grinned, deciding I was flirting.

"Where did you get your education?" He said, turning to me with a mixture of consternation and awe in his voice. Beside him Alfie continued working on the voltage regulator we'd earlier pulled and identified as damaged, removing its melted solenoid with what appeared to be with silvered watchmaker's tools. Upon the workbench lay Ryan's replacement part.

"I was home schooled." I answered somberly, the question not being one I'd hoped for. Consulting the drawings as I spoke, I leaned back a little more before going back to my trouble shooting. Again I hooked up the little black and red clips from my breadbox sized meter, powered what should have been a circuit and checked its continuity. I was doing electrical engineering. _Elizabeth's_ Electrical Engineering.

 _Triple_ E.

"I had tutors though, and I was quite keen at academic pursuits such as puzzles and cryptography. And this machine, particularly with its diagrams you've so helpfully supplied...it is precisely that. A simple puzzle to be put back in order. It is mostly there already."

"This is not a 'simple machine.'" He protested, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow with a drawn handkerchief.

Beside him Alfie closed the little black boxes cover. "Got it...new solenoid is in. Might you bring the meter, my Dear?"

I turned to the Machine and detached the box, hefting it with effort back onto the worktable. "Hook it up." I said, my arrival drawing both Peters' and Meyer's attention.

As Peters did connected it Randall shook his head. "How on earth do you...understand this?"

I paused, looking over Alfred's progress before looking back to him. In my hand I cradled my fingertip. "I...find that hard to describe, Mr. Randall." Beside him I took a seat on a stool, clasped by hand my knees together and met his eyes, feeling the air of the fans cool upon my damp face. "As I told you, I had a sheltered youth and considerable time on my hands, and with that time I read a great number of books. I did other things also, but reading was my pastime and I..." He would never understand, but I had to try. "I could read a book and visualize it rather clearly. In fact..." I reached to Lutece's tome and hefted it both hands into my lap. "I can just read and for the most part understand, not always, but with many things like this..." I saw his eyes just staring. "Do...do you think me a _freak_ for that?" For that instant I'd felt ashamed and my words had come out rather pathetic. He looked at me with such sympathy I felt even more ashamed for teasing him earlier. I'd known full well the wire worked...mostly...but for the little break two thirds of the way that closed only completely with the application of power and therefore heat. And the poor man could have never known that...not without a fingertip missing.

"No, of course not." He answered. "Please forgive me, but I've considered myself, Harvey and Alfred here...foremost in our field yet with this matter we have been completely bedeviled. Our understanding of the...this 'Tear Machine' was so incomplete...we'd spent months building it up, replacing components blindly by the drawings without truly understanding what we were doing. Only Mr. Tesla seems to understand its workings, and he has been far too busy to assist us until of late."

"And still it burned in the night." Meyer added. "Even Mr. Tesla had no idea what we'd done wrong."

"How does this machine relate to the book?" Joseph asked, just a hint of surrender in his voice. "We've tried to make a connection for months between the diagrams and the text, but there seems to be no confluence. Yet the other night _you_ appear and illuminate precisely what we have struggled to understand. And precisely when we'd reached an _impasse_ we thought we could not overcome. Who trained you? Please, we shall tell no one."

'Please' was a nice word and I hated to lie to them, so I fidgeted and bit my lip and I'm certain my eyes turned upward in thought. "I...think you're really wondering why you couldn't make the connection yourself, when really you're just looking at this all wrong."

"Looking at it all wrong? How is that?" Alfie asked, joining his associates in bewilderment. He handed me the refurbished voltage regulator and I turned to the Machine, hooked it up where it obviously went, finding it with the meter to hold current better than the poor little wire earlier.

"The book is only related to the machine in the way that theory allows...it predicts an outcome, the compaction of branes...not how to build the machine that does it. Whoever built the machine was obviously attuned to the outcome they desired, and Mister Tesla is aware of that fact, too. Another way of saying it might be that the construction and function of this device..." I looked the contraption over. "Has nothing to do with Quantum Mechanics, but _Quantum_ Mechanics...the _Lutece_ Mechanics, you'd say, has everything to do with what happens when you use it."

"You power the machine and the field it creates compacts the folds." Alfie said.

"The _branes_." I corrected. How do you tell someone something you know from experience but cannot _prove_? "But for this to occur, the field strength must be _extraordinary_. A field is just a straight line in higher dimensions, you know." By the look on their faces they didn't. "And there is a reason, I am certain, that this mysterious benefactor of yours had entrusted your employer to fix it. Should he have continued as he is doing, I've no doubt Mister Tesla would have stumbled across the effect by accident in his own endeavors within a few years...and the stumbling would have been its discovery."

"The 'effect'?" Joseph said.

I looked down at my fingers numbly, the glove concealing my shortened disfigurement. "Tears. What your employer is playing with here...the tower, his transmission of power...the geometries are all that matter. Have you not seen that these two spheres here..." I pointed green gloved fingertip to the two spheres. "And the central bulb with its surround of capacitor banks...have you not seen how similar it is to your tower?"

By their blank expression they hadn't. How had _I_? I closed my eyes, wishing Booker were here to tell me I wasn't a freak. "Maybe..." I said, glancing back to the now wireless I-beam. "We should get back to work on those wiring harnesses?"

#

Outside the hour had drawn late, the sun dimmed through the frost of the outward swung windows above. With the coming of evening and departure of Tesla's technicians it had gotten cooler and quiet in the cellar, and sensing no protest I'd taken to singing. As I hummed and occasionally added words, someone, likely Parsons, had come around and drawn those louvers closed. The fans kept us cool enough, I decided, but thinking it might on the off chance Booker sang my little song until the last was shut.

Along the opposite workbenches the men and their seconds had been reassembling those new wire bundles, necessary to provide power to the fresh array of components Ryan had provided. I, on the other hand, was reading up on electromagnets and windings for motors.

"Are you going to remain here all night?" Joseph asked, having donned his vest and tie, brown jacket atop it. I hadn't realized the time, and he was preparing to leave.

"I'm still reading on the manufacture of coil windings. It seems to be somewhat of an arcane art." I put the book back onto the desk, page open and bookmarked with a white feather I'd found on the floor.

"You have been a great help over the last two days, Miss Comstock, but Mr. Tesla has requested that you not be left alone with the machine."

"So..." I said with a little smirk. "You're asking me to leave?"

"That shall not be necessary, Mr. Randall. I am here." In surprise Joseph glanced to the steps, finding upon them Tesla sitting with legs spread, hands draped over knee. "And shall be for another hour or so. I was hoping to talk to young Miss concerning matters." His eyes turned from Abertnathy to the contraption, sitting like an arcane sculpture in the center of the chamber, wiring undone, boxes open. "I can see you are making progress."

"Indeed we are, Sir." Joseph said, approaching Tesla hat in hand. "Significant progress."

"We found several fused components today, Sir." I seconded, standing before my stool and brushing my skirt down. "Mr. Peters was able to diagnose three wiring bundles as the culprits behind the device's power issues along with a bad voltage regulator."

"To be fair, Sir, Miss Elizabeth had a hand in that too, Sir."

"Yes." He said, those blue eyes looking at me. "Will you be in at nine tomorrow, Joseph?"

"Yes, Mister Tesla. I shall." Seeing our connection, Joseph placed hat upon head and tipped it. "I shall take my leave, then, Sir."

Tesla rose and smiled. Ascending the steps, Joseph offered the man a handshake and got a hug in return. "Be confident in your capabilities. You would not be here if I were not."

"Thank you, Mister Tesla." He said. Glancing downward toward me he smiled and departed, leaving Tesla and myself alone.

"Good evening." I said. He had his arms crossed up there and was of course looking to me.

"And how are you settling in, Miss Comstock?" He asked, step by step descending downward until he alighted on the hard concrete floor. With the sun failing, the handful of lightbulbs hanging above were had become the greater illumination. The man before me was as much of a mystery as his facility.

"I am doing well. I seem to find my way around the campus and the books you have are adequate. Some sublime." He'd approached slowly, hair slicked back, that thin face of his inscrutable but unconventionally handsome. "I had wondered when you might come by."

"I have wanted to come by since you arrived yesterday, to find your needs and listen to your insights." His eyes turned toward the machine. "I did not think you would...have so quickly commenced the replacement of parts and wiring. Joseph and Peters and Meyer, after the debacle of the Fourth they'd been unwilling to take any chance at all again. There was...is...twenty thousand dollars tied up in this foray."

"Twenty _thousand_ dollars?" I whispered. My hand found my chest. "I...I didn't realize..."

"That it was so extraordinarily expensive? Those capacitors you so blithely commented on the other night...Mr. Ryan does not sell them cheap." Before me he came to a halt, looking my studies over. "Nor the resonance dome and its windings you are reading about. You have been working since early morning...not fitting for a young lady's constitution."

I found his thought odd, for to me it had seemed the day had flown. "Like you, Sir, I am used to long hours." I answered... _long and, empty ones_. "You know about our progress on the machine?"

"I do." He said. "Joseph and Alfred and myself, at least to a degree. Harvey somewhat less. The wiring we could replace, the components...what we could not understand was _why_ it burned."

"It does seem a mystery, does it not?" I asked, looking back towards the machine. Almost as if it were powered completely in its unsuitable state."

Tesla smirked. "When I was shuttering the windows, I do believe I heard someone singing down here? I cannot believe it was Joseph."

"You did." I smiled, demure in my embarrassment. "I didn't realize I was doing it so loudly as to be heard outside over the generator house."

"I heard you from outside but vaguely entered to listen. You have a lovely voice, Miss DeWitt...and the song...what its name, if I might ask? I do not believe I have heard it before. It sounded Italian."

"Thank you," I answered. "You are correct as to the words, though honestly I do not know the name. It's just a little song I made up when I was a girl...when I lived somewhere far away." As I spoke I knew my eyes were distant, surrounded by shelves of books. Seeing again through glass a panorama clouds I could never touch nor feel. Imprisoned within a fortress of solitude. Only after a moment did I realize what he'd said, and by then it was too late. I looked up in near shock.

Arms crossed, he was smirking.

"I think it is a good pretense, though I do not know precisely why you keep it. He seems to be a good man. Is he your father?" I didn't answer and he was respectful enough not to press. Rebuffed, he turned to the machine, placed his hand upon it. "This...mystery. I find it uncanny that at the moment of our frustration you should appear, a woman no less. I ask myself how is that but then say, _it is of no matter Nikola, after all these years God has sent a miracle to help you_." He was studying the machine now, its braces and bulbs, the cables burnt upon its sides. "I had feared that our excesses... _my_ excesses in pursuing this device...were coming up empty, particularly after the fire. There have been many times when our backers…backer, have nearly pulled the plug on my affairs. Now I have hope." Tesla turned back to me and approached, looking at my blouse and into my eyes. "I know we have only just met, but as a token of the esteem I already have for you, indeed, astonishment...I would like to invite you to a social affair this Saturday evening. Mr. Morgan is holding a dinner at his new villa, and I would like you to attend. Along with your 'friend,' of course."

"Mr. Morgan?" I asked, realizing that I was not only unprepared for a social turn of events but had nothing to wear.

"Yes...hardly any mystery if you read the papers." Tesla said. "The only condition is that you and Mr. DeWitt shall have to accouter yourselves formally."

I looked down, morose. "Mr. Tesla, we...we don't have the money."

He tipped my chin upward to meet his gaze and smiled. "Well, then something must be done to fix that. Tomorrow evening we shall work, but in the morning you shall go into New York to the Ladies' Mile to find something to wear...something spectacular for a spectacular lady. Take, err, Mr. DeWitt with you, as he is now my man and also needs fitted. A tuxedo, white gloves and top hat shall do. Mr. Elliott shall provide you with an account that you may draw upon."

The turn of events was marvelous, but even though I could feel myself elated I worried his charity was too much. "You shouldn't." I said, shaking my head. "I've hardly even begun to work for you, we've no successes to trumpet as of yet...how do you know..."

With his fingertip he stilled my lips. "This is not payment, my Dear. Aside from using your...knowledge...to help correct my oversights, you have a _part_ to play in an act of showmanship. There have been questions...and now I have answers. I intend to introduce you to my patron and set things right with the understanding that... _understanding_ has finally arrived. I shall arrange for Katharine to meet you at Lord and Taylor."

"Katharine?"

"Katharine _Johnson_." Tesla smiled. "A dearest friend of mine. I trust her in all matters implicitly, particularly those of dress and societal nature."

"Mr. Tesla, where might I ask is the gala to be?" I asked, knowing Booker would want to know. After the trip all the way out here, I was certain he'd 'love' the New York part.

"Not far away...Mr. Morgan's house in Manhattan."

I digested his words, not quite understanding what or where that was. Being alone, I especially felt his eyes. "You have something else you wish to ask me?"

"You are very perceptive, young Lady." From beside me he slipped to the workbench, removing the tracing paper drawings and closing Rosalind's book. Heavy and blue he held the thing before him, cradling it as he approached, eyes the same color as its cover. "The other night, you said you read this book as a young girl and fell in love with it." Feeling slightly anxious I fidgeted and looked briefly away, wishing Booker were present. He glanced about, as if to ensure no one else might overhear. "Then you articulated its basic principles without ever having opened it...and you came to my laboratory uninvited, to find a place and experiment _no one_ knew existed. I have no doubt that based upon the stunning insight you have brought to this laboratory over only the last two days you are extraordinarily gifted in this matter. I only have one question." Now those eyes looked at me with piercing intensity.

"How on Earth is that possible when this book is _not_ of this world?"


	9. 407142 N 740064 W

**Chapter 9. 40.7142 N 74.0064 W - Friday, August 2** **nd** **, 1912**

"Who is J.P. Morgan?" Elizabeth asked, looking from beside me out of the corner of her eye. Most of the trip in she'd been uncharacteristically quiet, preferring to look upon the trees and farms and growing city buildings outside the window. Turning further my way, she brushed a tendril of brown from an expectant brow awaiting my answer. I wished she'd left her questions to ' _why our new train didn't have smoke coming from its engine?_ '

"What does it matter?" I answered, with a sigh looking straight ahead. "We agreed to get the hell _out_ of the City...now we're going _back_. We're endangering ourselves. We're endangering _everything_ we've done." I didn't tell her what I truly felt, that creeping feeling that we were being drawn into some invisible web we would not escape. "We can take the money and leave." I said. "Just...get on a train going west at Penn and get the hell out of here." She was looking at me now like I'd shot her puppy. "Dammit, Elizabeth..." With that sorrowful face she turned away, pining out the window and I felt like a cad. "I'm going with you, aren't I?"

Grudgingly her gaze returned, looking upward to me but still petulant. "Not willingly."

I rolled my eyes. "I agreed to come here, meet this 'Katharine' and get the clothes."

A small smile caught the corners of her lips, though she didn't quite turn back toward me. "I've never been to a gala before. Are they grand?"

"As grand as the person throwing it." I groused. "I believe you'll be well received."

"So, who _is_ he?"

I sighed. Tall, white haired with a ripe nose and all of the money in the world, was who he was, remembering his mustache from the _First Lady_ passing into the North Atlantic...the first time I'd seen Shoreham. The feeling in the pit of my stomach was like a snare. "He's a serious man, older...perhaps seventy. He walks with a cane and has blue eyes that would burn you to cinders should they want. When I met him he was in a kindly mood."

"You _met_ him?"

"On the _First Lady_." I answered, remembering a windswept encounter on the airship's promenade. "On my trip out to Columbia. When I came to spring _you_."

"Booker..." She said, finally turning to clasp my forearm with her hands, anxious blue apprehending mine. Outside the higher brickworks of Brooklyn had arrived. "You do realize that was not _here_ , don't you?"

"No, I...I never really thought about it."

"Did you ever...wonder...how you actually _got_ to Columbia?" She asked, laying her head upon my chest. Absently I found myself stroking her hair.

The fact that I could do that so easily, or that I could look all day into her eyes and never tire of it made up for my annoyance. Now I wondered what she was getting at. What wasn't she telling me? "The thought had crossed my mind. That's why I'm so damned worried. It had to be him."

"Laslowe." She said very flatly.

"He sets me up for this job and then...the _First Lady_ , all of that. I guess I've been so busy the last few weeks that I've never really thought about how he'd pulled it off. Only how to get away from him before the debt came due."

"You say he appeared like the man who first took me when...when I was a baby?" The thought puzzled her, for I saw those little contortions in her brow as she tried to work the madness out.

"Yeah. The one I sold you too." I looked away. "The one who worked for C..."

I felt her turn my cheek back toward her with warm fingertips. "But you tried to get me back." Between us she slipped the bandage from my hand, seeing the knife scar bright red between her brown _A_ and _D_. " _AID_ ," she whispered, " _Anna Ilizabeth DeWitt_." With a grin she brought it to her lips, not having the heart to tell her it still hurt. "Are you all right?"

I couldn't help but feel at that moment what I'd felt so long ago, back on that terrible night, with Annabelle dead and me penniless and alone. Remembering how I'd considered putting a bullet into my drunken brain...and passed her off to someone I thought could actually care for her. And now here we were. "No." I answered. "But it will pass."

"Booker..." She whispered, still for a moment, lashes closing before looking again to my wound. She kissed it anew before drawing its scars to the side of her cheek. "I never knew how empty my heart was until you came into my life." She said, eyes looking up to mine. "Don't ever leave. Please...don't ever leave me." I swallowed, unable to reply. After a moment she nestled back onto my chest, her eyes outside once more as the buildings went by. "In the machine, the one Tesla is rebuilding…in the kinetoscope there are coordinates, north and south and an elevation. Do you know anything about coordinates?"

Being in the army, I did. I knew how to call in artillery strikes. I knew how to read the contour lines of a map. I knew how to kill with them. "Yeah."

"What do you make of these? _'40 degrees, 43 minutes 4.91 seconds North, 73 degrees, 59 minutes, 43.36 seconds West._ " She looked at me. " _Elevation 97 feet_."

"You memorized that?"

With a smirk she nodded and pulled back. "Sometimes when I read things I just remember them like a picture." Outside the train was descending a shallow grade, the buildings now great all about us in the mid-morning shadows. With the loss of the sun it became cooler. "What's going on?"

"We're getting ready to go under the East River." I answered, still puzzling over the location she'd mentioned. Without a map I could make no sense of them, but they did sound vaguely familiar...the 40 north and 74 west bit.

"We're going under the river!?" She exclaimed and sat up, hands upon the window pane and just in time for the blackness and lights of the tunnel to engulf the train. "This isn't very interesting. You can't see a thing." When she turned back it was to my unease. "What is it?"

"They sound pretty close...pretty close to the coordinates for New York City that Laslowe gave me. Rummaging through my vest, I drew the envelope out.

"Why would he do that?" She said, curious of my production.

"I don't know. It's not like I had an airship of my own to fly out of Columbia." I answered in the clattering darkness. Against the roar of tunnel I heard another noise, saw oncoming brightness and a train shot past us in the dark headed the other way. It passed quickly and I looked back to find her pulling the trinkets from the bloodstained manila.

"You kept it." She smiled. Upon the bench between us I now saw the ticket stubs for the _First Lady_ and _Atlantic_ , the symbols of the Founders, the postcard of Monument Island and the slip with the coordinates on it. It said _40.7142 N 74.0064 W._

"That was where I was to bring you. To Laslowe."

Studying the slip, she shook her head. "They're not the same."

"No," I answered. "But like I said…close. Can you do numbers in your head?"

"Sometimes." She said. "If they're not too complicated."

I wondered what 'complicated' might be for her. "Ones in degrees, minutes and seconds and the other's ten thousandths of degrees. By my reckoning, that's less than a mile apart."

"We should discover their locations…perhaps pay your 'Mr. Laslowe' a visit." As she spoke another slip of paper fell from the envelope. Before I could stop her she'd taken it in hand. " _Elizabeth...w_ ith an ' _E'._ " She smirked, reading its back before turning it over. She looked up at me. "He gave you a picture of me?" I nodded as she looked it over and frowned. "Not a particularly good one. Where did he get...is this why..." She was quiet now before looking up. "From one of the spying windows."

"I kept it." I said, remembering when first I'd seen it just over three weeks ago. Removing the photograph gently from her grasp, I slipped it and the trinkets back into the envelope. "And I won't be surrendering it, poor quality or not…not to you nor anyone. We'll be at the station soon."

#

The train came into sunlight and slowed, prompting Elizabeth to shield her eyes and look upwards. About us tall buildings rose into the sky, brick and stone monoliths that hung over the tracks in rectangular gray palisades. Shortly and with a squeal of brakes we came to a halt. Outside atop several platforms surged a sea of people. "Well, here we are." I said. "Penn Station."

Down the aisle our conductor walked past, checking seats and windows as Elizabeth turned to me. "Why do they call it 'pen' station? Do they keep animals here, or something?"

With the conductor's passing people rose and I joined them, helping her up. "No. The Pennsylvania Railroad owns it, or a part of it, or a bit of it. It's really Pennsylvania Railroad Station but everybody just calls it..." She took my arm and looked upward to me with that mischievous grin and I knew I'd been toyed with. "Never mind."

We exited onto the platform only to be caught in the crush, unable to make progress along the platform until the bulk of passengers had ascended the stairs. Beside the train a square truss of cast iron rose seventy feet vertical between the tracks, holding in grand arches the panes of a greenhouse roof high above. A mezzanine surrounded the pit we were in half again as high, fenced in wrought iron railing. At my side Elizabeth turned. "Oh, my." She said, shielding her eyes against the bright coming in from above. I offered her my arm. Pausing from her reverie, she smiled coyly and proudly took possession of it. With her at my side we took the cast iron steps up to the west waiting area.

The mezzanine was busy, with hundreds coming and going, others waiting on chairs and benches around a broad floor for their trains. To the north and south ends of the glasshouse round clocks marked 9:27am Eastern Standard Time with black iron hands. Following the crowd, we ventured into a passage east and darker airs, seeking the light at the hallway's end. When we'd left New York the day before, we skulked away like rats on the ferry, but now at its greatest station we'd arrived as gods.

A block and a half long Penn Station's central atrium rose, a "waiting area" comprised of pink marble and vaulted glass windows soaring one hundred fifty feet over the sun-drenched chamber. Shafts of light danced upon its polished marble floor from great arched windows. "It's beautiful." Elizabeth said as she gawked up and around, eventually acceding to my lead as I walked her toward a southern flight of steps that led up to the street. Suddenly she stopped, looking downward to a placard emplaced upon the pedestal beneath one of the eight clusters of lights upon the floor. Hands upon her knees just above the hem of her blue skirt, she crouched and read, "Modelled on the Roman Baths of Caracalla." Beside us a badged officer looked on, a balding attendant too in spectacles from the enclosure of an information booth. Mighty Corinthian columns rose behind him just before the walls, supporting that arched ceiling.

As their eyes followed we passed more light stanchions on pedestals, taking the handrail upward thirty feet through an exit of column-bracketed glass doors. Above them hung a massive mural of North America, Europe and Africa, the empty North Atlantic between them. "It's missing something."

"Yeah. I answered. "And good riddance." We emerged onto 32nd Street and congestion.

Outside it was warm, with people walking the streets in numbers we'd not seen since Emporia before the storm. I hustled us west toward Eighth where a trolley had stopped and together we hopped up onto it. "So, this is the way to the Ladies Mile?" She asked as we trundled along, glancing about at the other passengers and street windows of dresses, shoes and hats. Unlike me, she didn't seem wary at all, even though every minute here was an invitation for Laslowe to drop in and sweep her away. Or worse.

"The whole _neighborhood_ is called 'the Ladies Mile." I said, inspecting the street corners for unwelcome or familiar faces.

"Why only 'ladies'?" She asked, glancing to the scores of horses and wagons, men and women upon its cobbled streets and sidewalks. "It seems wonderful."

"That's _exactly_ why. This used to be the only place in New York City with a big enough crowd that women considered it safe to go out without a man." I knew that over the last years the more upscale shopping has moved Midtown, not that I'd enjoyed it, but this is where Tesla said to meet his friend. A few minutes later our trolley pulled to a stop at Twentieth and Broadway.

"Here." I said, hopping off onto the street to offer my hand. She accepted and I brought her down to the cobblestone. For a moment with my hand in hers she paused, so damned beautiful, looking up to me with that eager smile. I smiled back and purposefully turned, looking down the street. Likes books on a shelf, shop after shop lined them, but after our initial consideration her eyes turned upward. Against the blue sky a five-story mansard-roofed edifice rose. From the ground it was a layer cake of pillar-adorned glass windows, dozens of which on each floor were arrayed so as to give the feel of some great crystalline structure. The entirety of its corner tower was angled, with that rectangular mansard pavilion looming high on top, its blue roof encompassed by lacy gold cresting. Beige painted cast iron panels clad a double-height grand entrance. They didn't quite look like stone.

With a clang of bells the trolley was off, leaving us amid the bustle of automobiles and horses, the occasional slow wagon pulled by smelly draft horses. Nearby a chauffeured black Perry Pathfinder was puttering at wait, an attractive middle aged woman within, strawberry blonde hair arranged elegantly about her ears as she studiously attended a portfolio.

"Is that her?" Elizabeth whispered anxiously, peering within.

I turned and the lady looked up with pale green eyes, breaking into a smile. "Oh, goodness, you must be Elizabeth!" She said from inside. From the front seat her chauffer, a man of similar age but sturdier physique took note and stepped out, opening the door for his lady. Dressed in a dapper black uniform, wheel cap and polished black boots, he assisted her exit with an outstretched arm, alighting her before us. "And every _bit_ as lovely as Niki said." She observed, hands clasped before her. "And your chaperone…"

"Booker DeWitt." I answered, registering just how pretty she was only too late. She offered her hand and with a singular raise I shook it. "I'm Miss Comstock's escort."

"I...had worried after Niki's missive that I might not recognize you, but how could I not?" She turned to her man and whispered something. He nodded and stepped back into the front seat. "So, you are new to the city?" She asked, expressive eyes attending for a brief moment me more than my daughter. Her dark green dresses' hem rode gracefully just above the sidewalk stones, its top tight, lighter and somewhat sheer above the bosom where it slipped about her shoulders.

"To this section of town." I answered, noting perhaps a stray or two of gray in those otherwise fiery tresses. My attention had not, I noticed, eluded Elizabeth's uncertain gaze.

"I had wondered if Nikola had informed you fully of whom your concierge was to be. Allow me to introduce myself. _I_ am Katharine Johnson, a dear friend of Mr. Tesla for many years now. When he called to inform me of your pressing predicament, I was compelled to action. As I understand it…" Behind her a trolley's bells clanged and she jumped, and we all turned to spy a near collision with a horse drawn wagon. At its passing the teamsters began jeering. She glanced back from the commotion with a relieved titter, appending from the seat of her vehicle a flowered green hat to her hair. "You need guidance in the modern fashions for young ladies." Again she glanced at me, approvingly though more reserved. "And gentlemen."

"Yes." Elizabeth answered, seeming glancing ephemerally from me to her. That Katharine was older than Elizabeth was apparent, but aside from that touch of gray and the faintest crow's feet about the corners of her eyes, it was hard to ascertain how much so. The years, I concluded, had treated her well.

Lord and Taylor's entrance featured an impressive two story frontage of glass holding figures of ladies' fashion to either side of its steps. As we headed up the woman more than the dresses caught Elizabeth's eye. "The latest trends, my Dear." Katharine continued, seeing my girl's obvious approval. "Since my daughter Agnes married, I've not had anyone to spend my days with. You shall be my surrogate."

"That sounds…lovely…Mrs. Johnson." Elizabeth said coolly, still managing to admire the gowns.

As for you, Mr. DeWitt..." She said, turning to me. "We should take care of your needs first before Miss Comstock and I attend ours." As we walked across the floor a uniformed attendant glanced our way, eyes surveying in turn the well-heeled crowds attending the ladies accessories. Upon mannequins I saw suits, ties, coats and all manner of manly fashion. Shortly we came into a section with several seats and fitting stools. "Andrew…" She said, drawing the nearby attention of a graying and plump gentlemen being fitted. From behind a partition a man looked out, thin lips turning to a smile at the woman's arrival.

"Madame Johnson, such a pleasure! Thank you for the call earlier. This must be the gentleman we spoke of?" She extended her hand and he kissed its back.  
He looked my way. "Mr. DeWitt, I presume. Of…?"

"Kansas."

"And this is your daughter?" Andrew asked, adjusting his glasses to look at Elizabeth. "How positively radiant."

"I believe he is her guardian." She corrected as Elizabeth blushed, at the same time running the whole affair through her own mind.

I didn't answer. "I seem to have need of a tuxedo for an upcoming dinner function."

"A renting, then?"

"Actually, Mr. Tesla has requested that we purchase." Katharine announced with the clasp of her hands. "As there may be further engagements."

I was surprised but Elizabeth even more so. "Oh, goodness!" She said, hand upon chest and with a confirmatory glance toward me. "Are you positive?"

Katharine smiled. "No, but Niki is. And it is all on him, so do relax." She turned toward Andrew and myself. "We shall return within perhaps an hour, maybe a little more. I trust you shall be done by then?"

"We shall." My escort said. "Unless the good gentleman has unforeseen complications."

She turned to Elizabeth with a smile, examining my girl head to toe. "Are you ready?"

"I suppose." Elizabeth answered, seeming slightly embarrassed and with half an eye on the attendant. "Just one question, Misses Johnson." Hands still clasped before her, Katharine raised her head slightly. "You said 'shopping'...weren't we just fitting an evening gown?"

With a devilish gleam in her eye Katharine took the girl's hand, leading her toward the elevator. "Do come with me."

#

"What is this?" I asked two hours later as the women descended the grand stair at the Lord and Taylor's center, hand in hand, Elizabeth positively glowing. Though she was still dressed in her white blouse and green skirt, behind them men carried large round boxes…several. Over my shoulder hung a singular tuxedo, nicely fitted with polished shoes, matching shirt, bow tie and cufflinks.

"We went shopping, Booker!" Elizabeth said, alighting upon the polished wood floorboards with a gleeful look back to her smug benefactor. "It was wonderful!"

"I should offer you a ride to Penn Station for your trip back." Katharine said, her grin triggering my wary eye. "It should give me a few more minutes to further get to know such charming company. Miss Comstock is so endearingly bright."

"Yes, I know." I answered, my gaze subtlety admonishing my 'endearing' offspring. "We'd greatly appreciate it."

Together we headed out to the woman's auto and watched the store men load what were undoubtedly expensive boxes into the boot, so many there were that the last barely fit. I hung mine over the seat. Her black-accoutered chauffer opened the rear doors for us and, after assisting Katherine's entry, did the same for Elizabeth. With a sigh the self-loading baggage took a seat beside her and we were off.

"So, Penn Station?" Katharine asked, the glass of the windscreen offering a respite from the fierce ten mile per hour wind as the vehicle pulled out with a honk of horn into traffic.

I started to say yes but Elizabeth interrupted. "Misses Johnson…" She said, holding her own hair. "You wouldn't have a few moments to take us on a short excursion, would you?" I was in the back seat, and at Elizabeth's question exchanged with her a puzzled look.

"Excursion?" Katharine asked. Though the question was obviously a surprise, perhaps to both of us, she seemed only buoyant at the prospect. "Oscar and I are _committed_ to the both of you this morning." She smiled. "Where would you like to go?"

"Well…" Elizabeth said, looking again to me then back toward our hostess. "We have a question of geography at hand." She held her hand out toward me and I was flummoxed. "A dear friend of ours asked about a landmark, but provided only its location in the oddest of manners…not a street address but a latitude and longitude. Would you know of any way to locate such a thing? We haven't a chart."

Katharine's gloved index finger rose to the pink of her lip before her face lit up. "Robert has _many_ charts at our home…" She said, holding that finger aloft. "But perhaps the easiest way, since we are in the neighborhood, might be to drop by City Hall."

At the mention of the place I cringed and shook my head, but Elizabeth was having none of it. Afraid to voice my concern, I shrank back into the seat, worried. After a short conversation with 'Oscar,' Katharine directed we head south.

New York City's City Hall sat in the shadow of a skyscraper rising on its East River side…the Municipal Building, twenty five stories of white façade and windows that dwarfed what had once been Manhattan's most celebrated construction. To add insult to injury, a tower rose centrally above its two wings, fifteen more stories above the grounds as if to make a point. Not to be outdone, the red brick of the Woolworth building humiliated them both just a few blocks away, it and kindred edifices rising about the center of governance like a man made mountain range.

Oscar pulled alongside a broad, leafy park just off Broadway and we dismounted, Katharine again thanking her man before as a threesome we headed through the trees toward the building. I'd been here before a time or two with the Pinkertons, back when business legitimate or otherwise had called. We climbed a formal staircase before its central pavilion, one that swept up to the one-story portico fronting the building. To either side rose adjacent wings, while ahead of us the portico's roof was surrounded by a balustrade that in turned formed a balcony outside the Governor's Room and its five arched windows. Atop the building rose a high cupola, topped by a copper statue of Justice. All around the building were windows amid the white masonry, the exterior façade decorated by various types of sculpture and relief.

As we entered we passed a policeman watching the outside, finding a soaring rotunda within, a majestic space encircled by a keystone-cantilevered staircase. Ten Corinthian columns above supported a high coffered dome. It seemed like something out of Rome. Katharine stopped, turning back to approach the man. "Good Constable," she said as the pair us turned to listen. "The Surveyor's Office?"

"I believe they have relocated to the new Municipal Building." He stated, pointing with a white gloved hand toward the big monster we'd seen earlier. "You might try your luck there, Madame."

She turned, and following a less enthusiastic expression produced a smile. "It seems we have to go _there_." She said, gesturing with a nod of head towards the pretty new alabaster building that from the work going on overhead I could see was not quite finished. With a sigh she gathered herself and we were off.

Twenty minutes later we sat in a clean office on the Seventeenth Floor, waiting upon a new wooden bench with several others. Above the entrance a clock was ticking, and after a wary experience with the elevator Elizabeth was entertaining herself with the view outside. From the vantage point we could see most of Downtown, and off to the east a shiny airship or two coasting over the handsome arches of the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges. Katharine and I had been making small talk, the woman telling me about her children and me letting her do the talking. As the hour dragged on and I began to feel more of a burden, I rose and joined my girl at the window.

"What are you thinking?" I asked.

"What it might look like if you took away the water…"

"It's just a city, Elizabeth." I sighed. Overhead a gray fish passed, casing the building into shadow.

"Mr. DeWitt." A clerk announced, holding a clipboard before his dark vest and pants, white shirt crisply ironed. "Mr. DeWitt."

Together we turned and upon Katharine's restless face I saw a hint of _finally_. We approached the man, whose slim face sported a dark brown beard and sideburns but sadly shiny pate. "That would be me."

He offered his hand. "Joshua Brades, Sir. I see on the agenda you've written 'Survey issue.' If you'll follow me into my office, how might I be of help?"

"We have a location we are trying to identify."

"Two locations." Elizabeth corrected with a tenuous smile.

I glanced to her and back. " _Two_ locations. Unfortunately neither has a specific street address so we were hoping you might possess a chart with latitude and longitude upon it, so that we might identify the buildings of concern."

"Really? That simple?" Brades said, the magnitude of the task we'd been flummoxed by an obvious triviality for him. "Well, that _is_ quite simple. Do follow me."

Evidently curious, Katharine rose and followed, myself unable to find a polite way to dissuade the woman. Brades took us out the office door and down the corridor, entering into an office labeled 'Survey Hall' to find ream after ream of charts in various stages of yellowing hanging upon horizontal poles. Fingering his chin, the man began to sift through the hangings.

"Might I inquire as to what you are looking for?" Katharine asked, drawn to Elizabeth and my side, but particularly close to me. From my vest I produced the envelope, not thinking of the bloodstain until her eyes widened. Realizing he damage done, I opened it to produce the slip of paper with numbers upon it. "Mister DeWitt…" She hushed and took a step back.

"Here." I glanced to her worried face as I handed the man the slip of paper.

"Oh, excellent." Brades observed. "An easy plot." From the rack he drew a layered sheath of broad drawings and laid them out upon an angled drafting table, dusting them off with a whisk brush. Removing a tarnished pair of dividers from a tool rack, he looked at my scrap and measured out seconds along the east-west latitude before plotting the coordinates. Shortly he did the same for north-south.

"There." Brades said as he pulled back. "As I said, a simple plot. If this is all you have, my day shall be easy." As I leaned in I felt a presence to either side, looking to find Elizabeth and Katharine inches from my cheek. We exchanged an awkward glance and at the same time both of them smiled. Together we perused the map. "I would be curious as to why you are interested in this location. It's but two blocks down Chambers Street from here, opposite of the Tweed Building." Looking at the map, I could see that was precisely where it was.

"What is the address?" I said.

Parting the ladies with gentility, he pulled a magnifying glass from the tools upon the wall to examine the minute annotations in detail. "Well, there is none, per se…the coordinates fall in the middle of the Chamber's Street, right before Broadway on the West side."

"Elizabeth…" I whispered. She turned from where she'd been gawking alongside him. "Coordinates."

Katharine was confounded by our exercise, but Elizabeth straightened herself and arranged her hair before speaking. "Mr. Branes."

"Yes?" He answered with a reserved blush. Though a respectable man, he was not beyond either of these women's charms.

"Would you have a pen or perhaps a pencil?" Shuffling through is pockets he produced a slim stick of wood with a lead within. "And a scrap of paper?" Without removing his gaze from her, he sifted his pockets only to come up empty.

"Elizabeth." I said, handing her the slip on the rolled out map. Biting her lip, she hastily scratched out the other coordinates on its back and handed them to Branes.

Branes cocked an eyebrow and with a turn back to the charts measured out the distances. Dividers in hand, he ended up hovering over the chart. "Well, there it is. Not far away either, but a streetcar would be advisable.

"Booker…" Elizabeth whispered, eyes in sudden recognition as the location struck her. Nearing forty, my eyes weren't as good. Katharine was still taking our antics in, standing by, aware something meaningful was afoot but not enlightened as to that meaning. Though I had to squint to see more clearly, I could see without doing so where the point of those dividers fell…not far from the western approach to the Brooklyn Bridge. Atop a dilapidated little tenement in a neighborhood called the Bowery.

#

"Well, that was most unusual." Katharine observed as we came to a halt across from City Hall, the faint lines about her eyes telling of unease. We'd pulled into a freshly vacated spot on the west side of Broadway, parking between dozens of black automobiles as a steady stream automotive ants flowed north and south behind us. Between a tall brown building to its right and an awning covered entrance to a shop on its left stood a squat Roman facade of gray marble. Double doors lay between twin pillars at its front with more windows to each pillar's side. A dark, hemispherical window encompassed a clock at its center above those black doors, a clock whose hands were about to strike noon. Beneath the building's triangular roof the words "CHEMICAL NATIONAL BANK" were sunk in stone. "I must say that in all the years I've been dallying in the City, I've never had that experience before. Where..." She said, holding her hat. "Where do these coordinates fall?"

As Elizabeth took my hand to step out, she eyed nervously the procession of pedestrians moving up and down the sidewalk in their dull suits and dresses. It had to be strange for her…so many now in her life where there had been so few. "Right here." I said. "Right at that intersection." I glanced northward up the street one hundred feet to where a brick laden truck had stopped just before Broadway. "That makes it either this place or that one." My eyes landed upon the building next to us, one the sign upon its door christened the "Shoe and Leather Bank."

"Or perhaps the one across the street, the Broadway and Chambers Building?" Katharine added, Oscar assisting her exit upon the opposite side of the vehicle. She stepped round the front of the idling Pathfinder to stop before the bank's entrance, and I could see her eyes warily upon the holster concealed beneath my vest. After her perusal that attention drifted up street to follow mine. "There are many offices there. Did your…correspondent give you coordinates for any other locale?"

"No." I answered. "Only his name. Robert Laslowe."

"That seems rather odd. Though I seem to have heard it somewhere before."

"You've heard it before?" I said in puzzlement.

"Yes." She answered, slightly retiring from my attention. "But I do hear so many names at our parties. I would suggest then that I make some inquiries."

"That would be mighty nice of you, Mrs. Johnson, but for the moment would you be so kind as to keep Elizabeth in your company and here at the automobile?"

"Booker…" She said, taking my hand with both of hers. "Please."

" _Miss Comstock.._." I answered, knowing that anxious, forlorn look. "You had no issue with following Mrs. Johnson earlier, and if this man _does_ have offices here and I have the fortune to encounter him, I wish you to remain well clear of any consequences." I paused for a moment, and in my determined eyes she could see exactly what I meant. "I intend to learn what's going on. Please…" I asked now both her and Katharine. "Stay put." In their eyes I saw acquiescence, or at least a reasonable chance they'd heed my wishes.

"Very well." Mrs. Johnson said, eyes flitting between me and the girl. "So, the other buildings?"

"Like a needle in a haystack." I sighed, looking up with hand-shielded eyes to spy the heights of the adjacent building and one across Chambers. "This one's fourteen stories, the other one at least twenty. Elizabeth should have been back at Wardenclyffe an hour ago. We're never going to find it."

As I spoke Elizabeth's eyes turned to the crowd, mine following to spy a young boy crossing the sidewalk north to south, clad in brown jacket, knickers and socks and wearing a newsy cap. He was headed right towards us, a scrap of paper in hand. "Mr. DeWitt. Mr. DeWitt!" He cried. My eyes went wide and my hand went to his vest.

"Booker…" Elizabeth said, stilling me with the clasp of her hand. Seeing her horror, I felt shame and looked away with a dejected sigh. The boy had stopped before us and was holding out his hand.

"Message for you, Sir, from Mr. Laslowe."

"A…message…" He said. "For me…from…Mr. _Las…_ lowe?"

"We saw you from his office over in the Chambers and Broadway, Sir." In unison Elizabeth and I looked to one another, knowing equally what the other was thinking.

I opened the note. " _Twentieth Floor, Mr. DeWitt_. I down to the kid. "Which office on the Twentieth?"

"No office, Sir. It's the whole floor. Mr. Morgan owns it."

"Morgan…" I said, worlds crashing down upon my intellect. I turned to the women with a stern look. "Stay _here_." My eyes rose upward from the scrap to the building's parapets.

#

Together we crossed the street in haste, avoiding the cars and horse drawn carts and people looking at me from beneath their bonnets and top hats. Unlike the classical façade of the Chemical Bank and the high and lofty three story arches of the Shoe and Leather beside it, the Chambers and Broadway Building had a rather normal entrance on a sedate sandstone fronted ground floor of green awning covered windows. That wasn't to say the building was normal. Twenty stories it rose, capped by an upper floor of four stories, great arched windows around it, three on the Broadway front, six upon its Chambers Street side. Above it all, against that blue just afternoon sky, a crenellation ran, giving the roof the appearance of some grand medieval fortress.

Hastening up its marble steps I left the boy behind, coming into a lobby, a lobby filled with suited men and a woman or two going about their business routines. Offices dotted the halls to the left and right, and even a small restaurant on the Broadway and Chambers corner.

Apparently not wearing the proper attire, I garnered some glances as I made for the elevators, four of which lay in a bank at the end of the foyer, split by a large round clock. "Might I be of service to you, Sir?" I heard, turning to find the doorman in red coat and gold buttons. The brim of his patent leather hat was shiny and spotless, as black as his pants and shoes.

"Uh, I'm here to see Mr. Laslowe." About me the mid-day patrons turned to look at the distinctly rustic man in their midst, then went about their business.

"Ah…" He said. "You must be…" He glanced over my person, in particular my bandaged hand. "Mr. DeWitt. Mr. Laslowe had said to keep an eye out for you."

"He said to keep an eye out for me?"

"Absolutely." The gentleman fingered black sideburns, sideburns that came down to a short beard across his chin joined by a dark mustache. "Eddie will take you up." He said, glancing to a similarly attired young man near the lifts. With blond hair and blue eyes, I could have sworn I'd seen him somewhere before.

Feeling bewildered I stepped in, the doors closed and I felt the thump as the lift began to rise, the boy holding the lever in hand as the floors chimed off. I could not help but notice how he was looking at me. "Ain't never seen someone from Kansas before?"

"So, you're him." He said, looking at my hand then me like some mythical creature. Instinctively I clasped it, reminding myself anew there was no False Shepherd here…except maybe McSorely's. "Me and the boys had a bet going. Guess I lost."

"Lost?"

"Yeah. I bet we'd never see you."

"What was this about, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Well, Mr. Laslowe…he told us you'd be coming. Told us weeks ago. Told us to be on the lookout and make _sure_ you found your way." He chuckled. "We all started to think this 'Mr. DeWitt' was some kind of joke." He was, I thought. The bell chimed. "Here we are. I'll see you to his door."

We took a few steps across an elegantly appointed hall, enough to give a reception to the two lifts that serviced this top floor. Over my shoulder I could see the reception area led back opposite side the elevators to an elegant but closed door, while out great arched windows to either side lay a sprawling view of lower Manhattan. From the heights it reminded me of when I'd boarded the _First Lady_ so long ago. Or so it seemed.

Eddie approached two intricately carven oak doors, knocking upon one before opening it and letting a spray of light out upon the polished wood floor. "Mr. Laslowe, Mr. DeWitt is here to see you, Sir."

"Excellent, Mr. Hobbes. Your services shall no longer be required at the moment. I shall telephone you when Mr. DeWitt requests lift service down." The words had come from the part and the light. Standing there, I knew I could run…I could force the kid to take me down or find the stairs. That wasn't my way.

"What do you want, Laslowe?" I growled, ready to be done with this game one way or another. I stepped through in blinding rays to find him turned away and looking outside in the sunlight, standing behind a shiny oak desk, silhouetted against the skyline with hands clasped at his back. His blotter was laid out neatly with papers, arranged one atop the other like cards in some colorless game of solitaire. About his office New York City rose…a magnificent view of City Hall, the Tweed, the Municipal Building and Woolworth's below. I could hear cars honking below…saw the twinkling of the sun off the East River and New York Harbor and its moored Zeppelins to the south. A spotless Persian rug adorned the center of the place, laid below a modest but elegant chandelier. Two leather upholstered chairs sat before that big secretary.

"Mr. DeWitt," He said in that old New England accent I remembered from both days and _years_ past, gaze set outside. "How pleasant of you to visit. I had expected you might come by at some point, though I had hoped it might have been sooner."

"Yeah." I answered. Removing the Broadsider from my vest, I cocked it audibly. "I'd thought it was some crazy dream before, the remnants of a drunken stupor, but I remember now. You're not getting her…not again."

He turned to me with that brownish almost orange hair, hands remaining behind his back with a puzzled look. Blue eyed and thin faced, he noted in cool detachment the gun pointed at his head. Looking upon that visage, I realized he'd hardly aged at all. "Why, whatever do you mean?" He asked approaching me, running his finger about a perspiring silver bowl as he progressed, myriad colorful bottles sprouting from the shaved ice like bergs from the North Atlantic. Upon the edge of that desk I saw the silver handle of his cane hanging.

" _You…are not…getting her again_." My voice came low and cold. At my words Laslowe cocked an eye and craned head out the window, looking downward toward the streets. When I realized at _what,_ my heart leapt. "Dammit!" I bellowed, thinking in that instant to blow his head clean off his shoulders. Instead I threw myself through the maroon drapes, against the plate glass only to see Elizabeth and Katherine looking up worriedly in the street below, the black Pathfinder and Oscar waiting for me amongst the endless diagonal of black conveyances parked along Broadway. As they spoke Elizabeth took one of the round boxes she'd purchased to her chest and asked the woman a question, much to the curiosity of a small group of men passing by. Realizing I'd no idea of what was going on, I secured my weapon, letting it fall to my side. "What is your game? You took her when she was a baby. You sent me to Columbia…you know about it…about her…now you…"

"Mr. DeWitt, how I knew about your daughter is less important than _why_ I know her to be important. Now that Miss DeWitt…" He looked at me flatly. "Or should I say 'Miss _Comstock_ ,' has arrived, affairs are falling into place, quite in accordance with what I suspected might transpire."

"How did you get me there?"

He ran his finger across a lamp upon his desk, a lamp covered oddly with a draping of black silk. " _I_ did _not_ , not personally, at least. However, if you must know, your travel _was_ instantiated at my request. I would suggest you not bother Tesla with the details, for he needn't know of the unauthorized usage of his machine. The results of your transport, were, I must say, unfortunate but not unforeseen. Had Miss Comstock not returned to join Wardenclyffe' entourage, I would suspect that by now there would be no more machine…at least a functional one. Perhaps not ever." Selecting an envelope from his desk, he walked down the long line of curtained windows, feet slipping across the polished floorboards beside that beige and maroon carpet. I looked at it like poison before accepting.

Turning manila in hand, I found the envelope addressed to "Mr. Robert Laslowe, President of Electrical Holdings, Inc." from "TESLA R.C. WARDENCLYFFE LABORATORIES, dated the day before. Inside and upon Wardenclyffe stationary was a letter expressing "most excellent tidings" concerning of the contributions of a "new researcher," a letter that went on to note that said researcher was unusually a 'woman,' but that based upon her initial insights might very well be the key that would unlock 'the bird from the cage!'

It was signed by Nikola Tesla.

I handed it back. "I went to see Crookshanks days ago, Laslowe. Before we left town, days before you received this letter. You'd paid my debt and I sure as hell never came anywhere near here."

"Mr. DeWitt…" He said, thin lips and eyes not even allowing the hint of a smile. "I would not have gotten where I am without not having a gift to foretell the future and act upon those forecasts." He walked to his desk, and as he did so I realized the lamp was not a lamp at all but something else entirely…something with the shape of a bulb at its top and thin braces upon its sides. "Mr. Tesla required assistance in the optimization of his contraption, which even in its temperamental and sporadically functional state had become critical to Mr. Morgan's business empire…so critical that its impending dysfunction threatened our continued prosperity. There was a deadline for the machine's integrity to be established. You brought the girl over, and that was the bargain. The rest…" He paused, again glancing outside. "Now falls into place. I am sorry if you felt there was the scent of compulsion on my part. I had hoped you would bring her here for an introduction, but force was never my intent."

"But years ago, you took her…"

"I assure you, Mr. DeWitt… _I_ had _nothing_ to do with the spiriting of your daughter though, considering my studies…" He glanced to the veiled lamp. "I logically know why you might have come to that that conclusion."

"It wasn't…you." I said dumbstruck.

"You are not as dull as you come across, are you, Mr. DeWitt? Perhaps your preoccupation with the violent, or should I say 'kinetic arts,' lags an otherwise keen mind? Not that martial skills are necessarily a detriment…they were key, after all, instrumental to your selection for our recently concluded mission to the White City. Have you any _idea_ of how difficult an undertaking that was, finding one such as you who could..." He looked into my bewildered eyes. "No, you do not, do you?" With a sigh he continued. "You have followed on your end of the bargain. The debt is paid and Miss DeWitt…" He paused and looked at me. "Or, again, do you prefer, _Miss_ _Comstock_? Regardless, she is in the gainful employ of _Wardenclyffe_ and shall assist Mr. Tesla in overcoming his…mental roadblocks." He focused upon the gun at my slack-handed side. "Unless you have decided to use that on me, I believe our business is concluded."

"You're playing with fire, Laslowe." I said, my heart still pounding. "That Tear Machine… you've no idea of what Tesla's trifling with. Where did you get it? Why do you need _her_ to fix it? Why Tesla?"

"I would suggest for your answer you inquire with the wizard of Houston Street himself."


	10. North Tower

**10\. North Tower - Friday, August 2nd, 1912**

"I find it truly inconceivable you've never been shopping." Katharine said, turning to me as the gust from a passing truck nearly took her hat from her head. With a grimace the woman pulled it back and sighed. "Particularly…particularly a winsome young thing such as yourself." Removing the hat from her head, she looked at it in an annoyed manner and tossed it into the backseat of her vehicle, leaving her hair astray. "I know not the reason for your lack of culture, but whatever the origin it must remedied. Are you planning on remaining in New York long? By that, I do mean _Shoreham_."

"Why do you ask?" Mrs. Johnson bent forward to adjust red-gold tresses in the Pathfinder's side mirror. In front of the car Oscar turned, noting coolly his employer with a sidelong gaze.

She stood and straightened jacket and skirt, turning with a grin. "Because, seeing you are a friend now of Nikola's, I was hoping that we might, well…get to know one another. He has said such _splendid_ things of you." As she smiled her eyes landed upon my neck. "And such a _delightful_ choker you have. The pendant upon it...a diving bird? Wherever did you get it?"

"Mr. DeWitt…" I fretted, touching it self-consciously. At the front of the car I heard a sigh…saw Oscar cross his arms in boredom. "Mr. DeWitt bought it for me. In Col…"

"Coney Island." A gravelly voice said from behind. To our mutual surprise we turned, discovering Booker breaking the flow of people along Broadway like an island the stream.

"Booker?!" I said, elated at his unanticipated return before seeing his haggard face. My hand fell to my chest. "What…what happened?" Without thinking I approached, found his unbound palm and took it. Realizing both Katharine and her man were looking on. I let go and recomposed myself.

"Your meeting with Mister…" Katharine began to ask, eyes darting between me and my father.

"Laslowe." He said, taking in a deep breath as he surveilled the streets.

" _Laslowe…_ " She repeated with a smile. "It was him?" Booker nodded, and I could tell he was in no mood for conversation. "Goodness, man, please do not make this like pulling teeth. What did he say?"

"He said we need to get back to Penn Station."

As the crowd moved around us we stood there in silence. After all she'd done for us I could feel how much his words had hurt her and wanted to wallop him. "We shall, Mr. DeWitt, but in due time. Misses Johnson has _graciously_ invited us for a short visit to her house. Seeing as the gala at Mr. Morgan's mansion is not far away from that location, she thought it a good idea to dress there before the party tomorrow night."

His stare was withering.

Feeling as though I was about to melt, I turned away from his awkward silence to Katharine and presented a remorseful smile. "I'm sorry…this has turned out to be the most odd day. We would _love_ to see your house. Seeing our business concluded here, should we go, then?"

"Well…" She said, looking back to Oscar and her Pathfinder then back to us unexpected elation. "Do gather in."

#

"I don't like this one damned bit." Booker mumbled as Oscar slowed before the Johnson house. He'd been a pill the whole trip, and as I'd craned my head and taken in the broad streets and tall buildings about us along the way he'd only sulked worse. We'd come further north in the city than I'd anticipated and for directions was at quite a loss, taking comfort only in Mrs. Johnson's hospitality and the fact that despite his surliness, Booker was at my side. Reaching up with my fingers, I turned him with fingertips to face me, mouthing silently ' _what is the matter_?'

"I don't know." He answered, meaning he knew exactly what was wrong but didn't want to talk to me about it now. With the squeal of brakes we came to a halt. On southeastern corner of Lexington and what the street signs said was '39th' rose a lovely brownstone, three stories tall… _327 Lexington_. Opening the vehicle's door before our chauffer could, Booker offered his hand first to me and then Katharine.

"So, this is your house, Mrs. Johnson?" He said, turning after we'd alighted upon the sidewalk to inspect the residence.

"Please call me _Katharine_." She said as her eyes took in Booker's profile, yet uncertain his mood. Seeing as there were so many women in New York, I shouldn't have found it unusual for one to take interest in a handsome man. Reason didn't matter, though…for she was an attractive woman and Booker had noticed. She turned to me and smiled. Despite my feelings I forced myself to do the same. "My husband Robert and I have lived here for years, raised our children…entertained so many people. But now they are out of the home and on their own. Sometimes…" She finished with a sigh, less than consciously wringing her hands, "Sometimes it can be rather quiet."

"We appreciate the hospitality. I answered. "But we do need to be getting back soon. Are you certain this won't be a trouble?"

"Have you tried getting dressed for a formal only to take a railroad an hour or two away? We shall drop the gown off then whirlwind the house…you shall be on your way soon." Up her steps Katharine hastened as Oscar struggled to keep up, lugging boxes from the car. Seeing the man beleaguered, Booker took some in hand from the boot and joined him upon the steps and onto the porch.

At the top our hostess opened twin wooden doors and we entered to a long foyer. "This way, if you wouldn't mind." She said. The reception hall was hung with portraits and photographs, many of family showing the Johnsons when they were younger. Her husband was a handsome but staid fellow, in each picture as the years progressed growing modestly older and his beard longer. Oddly but for a line here and there, she seemed little changed.

She took us back beyond a stair into a sitting room where the men set the containers. "Booker." I said as he set the last of the boxes down.

"Yeah?" He asked, wiping sweat from his troubled brow.

"Would you mind stepping out? Just for a moment." After the work he'd done he looked at me like I was an ingrate. With a grin I pushed him back gently into the foyer. Katharine closed the sitting room door and went to unpacking the few boxes the men had brought in, removing the gown from one to hang it upon a coat rack.

"I love it." She said, hands clasped before her. "You shall have to arrive early tomorrow, say no later than 4pm sharp."

"It will take that long to get ready?" I said, inspecting the sparkling pinpoints in the fabric's navy blue.

"I have some things in mind." She smiled, glancing me up and down. "Wherever did you get that outfit? Very pretty but…different."

"Columbia." I answered, holding its blue skirt.

"Columbia…" She said from hanging it, opening the box with matching shoes and silken hosiery. "As in South Carolina? Or Missouri?"

"Missouri." I answered, having no idea where the place was other than not in New York and Booker had mentioned it before.

"So, you're a western girl?" She said, brushing her hands and beginning her extraction of accessories from the boxes. "I thought I'd detected a touch of western in your… _chaperone's_ …accent." Setting the dress aside, I began to help, looking at the black shoes…French high heels, I recognized, with a degree of involuntary pleasure. "The rest of our little treasures remain in the car…" She finished with the last container. "So now we are prepared for tomorrow. Shall we?" She gestured toward the Salon door.

She opened it and Booker was peering at the multitude of pictures and portraits along the walls. As we joined him I could see most were of family but many others unknown. Upon one wall, above a small table and lamp with tassels around its shade, hung a sepia portrait of a certain man. "How long…how long have you known Mr. Tesla?"

At my words she suddenly blanched and her hand shot to her chest. "Oh, goodness… _Niki_. Just a moment please!" In haste she carried down the hall. Picking up a glossy black tube from a brown lacquered wall box receiver, she placed it to her ear, leaned forward and began to speak into a small sound horn. "Hello, Operator? This is Mrs. Katharine _Johnson_ …could I get long distance Shoreham 45750?" She listened patiently for a moment. "Yes, I'll hold."

As I cocked my head and crept toward her in amazement, Booker took my arm. "Best give the lady a little space."

"What _is_ that?" I asked, completely mesmerized. Thinking back, the last time I'd seen something like it had been in the Montgomery home.

"A telephone. You listen with the part she has to her ear and speak into the mouthpiece."

"And you can talk over distance? Who…who is she calling?"

"Niki! Oh, hello! I'm _so glad_ to have reached you!" From down the hallway we heard squawking. It was unpleasant and Katharine's sunny demeanor faltered. "Now Niki, we _are_ done. Your girl shall make a splash tomorrow as _you_ desired, and after a short tour of Castle Johnson, I shall have them over to Penn Station and on their way back home." Her eyes lolled amidst more squawking and she bit her lip. With a sigh she blew the stray hairs from her eyes. "Yes, yes…I realize she is important to you but, but it was you who emphasized her social dimensions. Yes. Yes…I shall have them on their way soon. Soon! Until tomorrow!"

She hung the thing up, drained, but nevertheless put on a smile and came our way. "That would be your employer. He relays that it would be marvelous if you were on your way back to Shoreham."

"Mrs. Johnson, is that you?" I heard a voice call from above. Down the foyer's wood-railed stair a middle aged lady in a gray maid's dress descended, alighting at the bottom of the stairs upon the wooden floor. Approaching us, she came before Katharine. "I am sorry, Ma'am, but I hadn't heard you come in." Gray haired and older, she had pale skin and like Katharine green eyes. She turned and glanced at us as Oscar loitered near the door. "Guests? For the evening?"

"No, I am afraid not, Nora." Katharine answered. "Although depending upon Mr. Morgan's service of libations..." With a gleam in her eye Katharine turned, hopeful like a schoolgirl. "Mr. DeWitt. Miss Comstock. I have yet to convince Niki to stay the night but I am _certain_ Robert would be incensed if both you and he did not. There are no trains that run on the Wading River Branch that late, not leaving Penn past five. Would you accept our hospitality and spend the night with us?"

Before Booker could answer I interrupted. "Yes…" At him I turned to smile. "We would love to."

#

The early August afternoon was drawing to a close as we pulled into the Shoreham Depot later…as late as it had been the day we'd gotten off the train in Yaphank before. That funny sounding little town was but a memory now, but the heat of the summer remained unrelenting, both of us perspiring as Booker and I disembarked. With a blast of sideways steam the train blew its horn and began to pull out, rolling down the tracks for points further west. We found ourselves alone upon the wooden slats of the boardwalk.

Ever since Katharine and Oscar had seen us off at that big Penn Station, Booker had been upset with me. Maybe even before. He wasn't the social kind and despised entanglements…anything that might touch on our past and present relationship. With no happy homemaker nor passengers upon a train reckon with, I figured now I would get both of his barrels. Instead he remained quiet as we walked across the bridge over the tracks, down past the watchman and into Tesla's little city.

"Booker, please talk to me." I implored as we walked along, boxes stacked in hand. With several of the larger ones left behind at the Johnsons', we had less to carry though at times they seemed to take on a life of their own.

"What is there to say?" He asked, stopping to address his fellow. "Good afternoon, Lawrence. Is Mr. Parsons about?"

"Down in the yard, Mr. DeWitt, getting ready to head down to the North Resonance Tower to give it a round before the weekend. He came asking for you earlier."

"Thanks." Booker sighed before continuing down the steps into the yard. "I'll go find him."

"But this was Mr. Tesla's idea, not mine." I protested once we were away, looking at the workers all so ready to call their Friday finished. "What…what did he say?"

"He said exactly what I told you. The debt is paid." Unsatisfied with his answer, I stepped before him. As I did so one of my containers fell and tumbled open, spilling unmentionables upon the concrete. In embarrassment I knelt to gather them back, only to find him amused as I rose. "She really set you up, didn't she?"

"I'd hardly anything at all." I said, looking at the silk in hand. "Everything I ever owned was lost in the Tower."

"Do you…do you ever wish you were back there?"

"No!" I answered, incensed he could even ask such a thing. "Please, Booker, what has you so bothered?"

With the sun casting a warm orange to his perspiring face he sighed and looked out to the tower, eyes casting upon the workers in the yard. "He told me this was the arrangement. Here."

" _Here_?" I asked, not understanding at all what he meant. "With _Tesla_? But…"

"He said you were needed _here_. Us leaving the city to get away from him, the Morellos, following your instincts…he knew it all along. He _knew_ you'd find this place."

"How? _How_ could he know that?!"

"You tell me, Elizabeth, but I think we're both used to things impossible by now. But from what I saw…" He clenched his eyes. "I think he has an Oracule."

I didn't move, feeling the weight of the packages upon my chest. "An… _Oracule_? But this machine…this is the only…"

"I wouldn't bet on it." He looked up and across the yard to the figure of a dark haired man. "I think Tesla is waiting for you."

Still holding my boxes I digested his words, knowing what he said could not be true. Had this Laslowe fellow a tearing device in the city, particularly so close by, wouldn't I have certainly have _felt_ it? "Could you take these?" I asked, handing Booker the rest of my wares. I felt guilty, but I could see now Tesla looking on and impatiently so. "See you tonight. You'll come around, won't you?"

Jumbling with the boxes, Booker nodded. "Yeah. I'll be here."

Feeling back but tardy I hastened across the yard, passing Tesla's draftsmen and machinists as the men headed for the gate. It was quitting time, I realized, but not for his scientists and the man himself…for them the day was just beginning. Having left an early dinner at the cafeteria, they were bound for the Bunker, adorned in lab coats for the evening's run. "Miss Comstock." Tesla said, holding a coat out to me. It was fresh and brightest white, upon its right breast the cursive name _Elizabeth._ As he held it out to me I took it in hand and drew it about myself. "I trust you had a productive morning?"

"I did, Sir." I said, feeling the linen and reading pleasurably my name upon it. Toward the gate and departing workers I saw Booker with the Parsons man, the latter thankfully taking some of the burden I'd foisted upon him. "I'm so sorry I'm late. The city was far away and Mrs. Johnson was so hospitable."

"Indeed she is that." He answered. "Still, you are here now. In the wake of your epiphany the other night regarding the main capacitor sequence, Joseph, Alfred, Hans and Willie have completed the rewiring. All that remains is to install the dome and begin our power tests. With any luck we shall be able repair that which is damaged and generate our first tear…possibly even tonight."

"Tonight? But I don't see how." At the Bunker he opened the steel door, and as we descended the steps down its concrete floor I spied Joseph and Albert hard at it, the machine cleaner now, the wires and cables scrubbed…its side stanchions cleared of melted rubber. At its center top the silver dome and side bulbs were missing, disassembled upon the workbench with new capacitors tubes laid out about it…the old burned ones set off to the side to be discarded. I hadn't seen into the dome's innards yet, but seeing it there I couldn't resist, taking the tracings in hand and comparing them to what I was seeing. "Windings…about layered electromagnets." I said before turning back to Tesla and his men.

"Yes." The dark haired man said at my side. "Designed in three phases so as to rotate the field."

"Like your motor."

He smiled. "The disk on the bottom is similarly wired, though beneath the plate. The field is spun in phased sequence, to prevent a unidimensional contact and collapse." The words he'd spoken were strange but rung true…and only one who implicitly understood the design's function could have spouted them so easily.

I looked at the plans and notes at their sides, then back to Tesla. My eyes slid back to the resonance dome, seeing the thin copper wire discolored. "The windings are burnt and won't conduct properly, will they?"

Willie and Hans were laboring over a large box upon the ground, one with a packing notice on it from his Hudson Street laboratory. Taking a hammer from the bench, Tesla approached their side, prying the lid off with the tools back before casting the plywood wood aside. "Some assistance, please, Gentlemen?" Seeing them kneel to lift the contents, I placed the papers back upon the workbench and went to help. Tesla glanced my way and shook his head. "Miss Comstock, your gesture to assist is appreciated but not required. Gentlemen, upon my command. _Lift_." In concert the men heaved the copper-wound doughnut to their waists, and with some effort moved it to the workbench and sat it down. Seeing it coming at me, I stepped aside.

"Where…where did this come from?" I asked, amazed to see a shining new component nearly identical to the one upon the bench.

Brushing his hands, Tesla looked to me and stepped back to the box, sifting through the hay to apprehend another broad disk. "An excellent question, my Dear. Gentlemen, once more." Together they heaved the second component out of the box, tan straw falling to its sides. It was a stepping disk I could see, rather the insides only. "When we first met. The anonymous donor…I am afraid that was _me_."

#

As Parsons finished loading the last of Elizabeth's boxes into his automobile he gestured toward the passenger seat. "Do hop in, Mr. DeWitt. We'll make short measure of your woman's bequest at your Bungalows and take in the North Tower before sundown."

I placed my three beside his in the back seat and opened the front door of his Model V. "Thanks…I was beginning to think we had a long walk ahead of us."

"You mean back through the trail?" He asked, starting the vehicle with rattle and clunk. "I still find it difficult to believe you walked the path at night to break in. You truly do not have an automobile?"

Automobiles were expensive…as were daughters. "No. I'd been hoping to get back on my feet with Miss Comstock's employ, but it has not happened yet."

At his command we backed out and turned, puttering down the drive to veer westbound on the highway outside the south gate. "From what I understand, these Bungalows are not the place to save money." Parsons shouted, casting an offhand glance my way from the driver's seat. "The wealthy come from New York seeking to escape the summer heat, hence the rates are high. Winter would be a better time to save your pennies there."

Still baking in the afternoon sun, winter I decided it was _not_.

Still, the air felt good through my hair and on my face as we drove along. With the afternoon's progress the sun had edged lower across western treetops, and as we turned down Woodville the shade was even more welcome. Passing the Maples and Shoreham Inn, we came to a halt before the Bungalows. Together we alighted from the vehicle, proceeding to extract Elizabeth's packages from its back seat. Several people were milling about outside the office and glanced our way as we passed through the breezeway to the back approaches. Nearing the door to our cottage, I produced the key and opened the door.

"You know…" He said, walking in and taking note of our broad but singular bed. "I've been trying to place your face ever since we met but have failed utterly to do so. Do you mind me asking," He placed his boxes down upon the sofa. "Have you held a professional job at some point in the recent past?"

"You mean _aside_ from the Army?" I asked, placing my containers upon the door side oak table with a sigh. "I was with the Pinkertons for several years after I came home in '06'. I'd had enough of the Army by then, but you know what they say…you can take the man out of the Army, but you can't take the Army out of the man."

Again he examined the neatly made king, hand passing over one of the four cherry wood posts that rose from its corners. "You should have said so earlier, DeWitt. Having that kind of experience is a good thing for employment like this."

"It's…not the kind of experience I like talking about." Outside in the evening light the waves were washing in from the East.

Parson's hands slipped behind his back and he ended looking out across the blue alongside me. "I see, but I wouldn't be afraid of the matter. You're not the only man who's done hard work, you know."

"Hard work? That what you call it?"

"We all work for masters, DeWitt. Sometimes we admire them, sometimes not. In life a man's choices tend to be few. You know my past…and why I'm here. Tesla, for all his eccentricities…he is a _good_ man. As much as he is able, he cares for us at Wardenclyffe, though sometimes the manner in which he shows that compassion is…unusual. Where did you work with them? The Pinkertons, I mean."

"Here in New York, mostly." Memories of steel and soot came back. "Some out in the Midwest."

"Pennsylvania, perhaps? Perhaps _Pressed Steel_?" His eyes had caught me from the side. "I'd thought I'd recognized your face. As I said, it's no shame to admit you have done rough work, friend. I've seen some ugly moments myself."

"So you were there? At the Rocks?"

"On horseback, trying to keep some semblance of order. What a damned shame that was. I understand why you don't wish to talk about it, but I, more than many, can understand. I didn't think the Pinks were involved in that one."

Walking the grounds and taking names, I remembered…keeping my lists for the later reckoning, all the while coming to see the abuse wrought against those poor Poles and Russians. It had been my job, though, and I'd done it…until it had been my turn later…packed in the train cars on the way in to break the strike…deprived like those workers even the necessities of life. "Like I said…it wasn't something I much wanted to talk about."

"Are you married? You and the girl." He asked against the wash of the waves below.

"No." I answered quietly. "She's my daughter."

"I wouldn't see why all the mystery then. The different names." His eyes remained set upon the slats of the boardwalk below. "She doesn't look at you like she is your daughter."

I digested his words, wondering why I seemed to trust him with such damning facts. I knew nothing at all about the man other than what he'd told me. "It's complicated."

He glanced to the west where the sun was hovering a top the eaves of the bungalows. "Well, perhaps we should go. If we wait much longer we'll lose our daylight."

Taking again to his automobile after a short walk to the lot we headed east, the glow of the sun at our backs, orange light on the horizon filling the treetops. Here and there a cottage glowed warmly along the unpaved road, a road that wound through a hilly and increasingly dark woodland. After several minutes Thomas brought the car to a halt alongside what appeared to be a freshly installed plank gate, letting our conveyance idle as dismounted and withdraw a key from his pocket. Taking the spindle of metal to a lock hanging from a chain, he released the gate and swung its wooden slats wide of the road. Hopping back in, he put the machine into gear. We proceeded gingerly down a shallow grade cut through the trees, emerging on a leveled hilltop and paved parking lot amid the oncoming night. An octagonal foundation and inset cone of steel towered before us, tall as the Statue of Liberty.

We squealed to a halt, coming at idle to overlook the Sound once more. On the sand below a large steam shovel sat idle, its bucket hanging silently in the twilight while chains tangled in the breeze. Against the distant Connecticut shoreline I could see its silhouette along with that of an idled crane. "So this is it? Tesla doesn't think small, does he?"

He popped the door and shut down, slipping out from his seat to alight upon the fresh paving. "No, he does not." From his automobile he produced a hand light, one that unlike Elizabeth's was cylindrical.

"Thank you." I said, finding it fit nicely into the palm of my hand. Against the wash of waves below Parsons trod out across the foundation, looking upward toward that great framework tower. Producing his own hand light he shown it about, inspecting the perimeter fences that guarded the artificial promontory from a fifty foot fall to the sand below.

"I take it this is part of my rounds?" I yawned, covering mouth with hand.

"We make a check evening and morning before the sun rises." He answered, shining the light about dimly visible scaffolding. "We've had some young folks coming by lately and try to dissuade them from tomfoolery." Walking to the center of the tower's expansive structure, I discovered a steel elevator shaft that led up to the top and down into the bowels of the earth. About its circumference wound a spiral stair, completed only going down, while about its periphery ran cables and conduits along the walls.

"What is this?" I asked, fingering one of the cables.

"Electrical wiring, I suppose." He answered, shining his light to join mine on the cables.

"How far down does this go?" I asked, peering with torch down the darkened spiral stair. He stepped forward and pressed the button beside the doors. They opened with a chime.

"I can only tell you what is here. Mr. DeWitt…not why, although I have heard that Mr. Tesla intends this substructure to supposedly 'gain a grip upon the earth.' Ask me not what that means." Once inside the cab he pressed a button on the control panel and tugged on a lever. The enclosure began to descend, lowered on a cable from above.

We must have gone down over one hundred feet, perhaps twice that or more, for the cab lowered slowly past incandescent bulb after bulb and it was some time before we stopped. Outside the fence doors lay a twenty foot high concrete dome illuminated by more of the same lights, while eight tunnels descending away from its platform in equal parts around its circumference. Down each ran a thick pipe, eight of them total and each over two feet in diameter, mostly sunken into the concrete. As my eyes followed one in its descent, against the light I noticed shadows moving perhaps a hundred feet away…startled shadows. I hadn't expected anything down here, at least not anything alive. Down the tunnel a scurrying commenced and the sounds of flight. "Company."

"You there!" He shouted, voice echoing from the cement walls. Without bothering to comment he tore down the tunnel and I followed. "Damned boys!" He exclaimed. "This is exactly why we needed another man! You there, I say again, _STOP_!"

A bullet answered his demand and we threw ourselves back against the tunnel walls, cleaving to an alcove against the threat of more. Ahead and not far an access panel lay removed from the pipe. I pulled out my Broadsider, which he looked at enviously. Looking to the open panel and obviously cut wire bundles inside, we held our position. "How often do kids shoot at you?" I asked, hanging to the alcove.

Hearing the feet speeding away, I whipped out and fired at where they'd been. The tunnel had been descending, but from our new advanced position I saw now that it began to arc upward. I hastened onward, rushing until I was at a sprint upon the incline.

Gunfire echoed afresh through the tunnel only slightly ahead of his bullet, a round that smashed into the concrete and blew chips off at my right. I turned sideways and aimed, letting loose a single round to a pained and bloody spray. "DeWitt!" Parsons cried.

Realizing they'd be slowed by the climb and now out for blood, I fired again. Where we'd come to the grade now angled upward, and against the procession of bulbs I could see one man hauling another with arm about waist, perhaps two hundred feet ahead. "Stop!" I cried out. "Or I'll shoot again!" The unwounded one threw his companion against the wall and he answered my bravado with more lead. Back against the walls Parsons went, as slugs ricocheted the pipes, spinning to the floor and rolling down the grade past us.

After a moment the bullets stopped coming and I heard a cry ahead. "They are not getting away." I growled more to myself than Parsons. Throwing myself into the passage I unloaded, round after round from my Broadsider blasting the concrete ahead only to see legs disappearing up a ladder. Dashing the last hundred feet up that shallow slope I came into an igloo of sorts, a round, hemispherical dome with a flat floor. Tucking the gun into holster, I climbed the side mounted iron rungs only to have my head nearly taken off as I peered out the hatch.

Ducking back in I heard a car start, saw lights come on and the churn of tires upon dirt. Hastening upward I opened fire a final time, my rounds snapping through the underbrush and trees after the receding automobile. Down a logging road its taillights were diminishing, headlights on the woods ahead and followed by a billow of dust. Behind me Parsons was crying out, and finally I heard him clamber up the metal of the ladder.

"DeWitt, dammit man, where did you learn to run like that?"

"The Philippines…" I answered flatly, watching the vehicle disappear at a turn to the east. "It was pretty useful when a bunch of Aguinaldo's boys were chasing after you."

With the taillights now gone, Parsons surmounted the embankment to the road, completely out of breath. "They got away." He said, hands upon knees and wheezing.

"I noticed." I said, slamming pistol back into holster.

We made our way through the woods and back to the concrete igloo, illuminating its round dome in our lights. At the side of its gray steel door a brass padlock lay sheared away upon the ground. "Bolt cutters." He said. "We shall have to report this to Mr. Tesla, posthaste…" Kneeling to examine the lock, he turned it in hand beneath the yellow focus of my light. "If not the Sheriff's office. Is there anything else at all you saw, anything at all that might potentially aid in these criminal's apprehension?"

I reached down to touch the stain upon the grass, sampling it between thumb and forefinger. "No, but I _heard_ something that might be of use."

"And what was that?" He answered, lock and light still in hand.

Memories of Comstock House and Edmonton's crew came back to me, images of smug, pale faces…before Elizabeth turned those visages into debris-punctured corpses. To the south above the trees a brilliant flash exploded, light arcing across the sky, illuminating the foliage above in black and white like flash powder. Through the now visible leaves the horizon began to glow.

For a moment we both stood there, looking at the spectacle as shears of light began to form and shoot off overhead. "I don't know exactly what that poor fellow said when I put the bullet in him, but whatever it was, it was in _German_."

#

It was dark outside as Johnnison and I finished setting the windings in the dome, sliding the metallic cover gently back upon the assembly as Tesla, Alfred and Willie looked on. With the cap in place, the latter man went about its base with a screwdriver, securing the dome to the foundation before sliding a leather harness about its left and right sides. As they lifted it into place on pulleys to the head of the Tear Machine, I stood biting my lip. I was surprised to find Mr. Tesla at my side.

"Oh." I said, turning to him and brushing my hair from my eyes. "I'm truly sorry. I didn't mean to bump into you."

"You didn't bump into me." He whispered, eyes intent upon the assembly, thumb and fingertips upon dot-like chin.

"You know…" I whispered in kind, as if louder words would break the spell of concentration his three were laboring under. "I failed to apologize for being late this afternoon."

Without looking to me he shrugged. "That is Katharine. She is a lovely woman, both inside and out, but a trifle zealous when it comes to fashion." His eyes turned to me. "For herself and others, but that is not an altogether bad thing at times."

He'd turned now with those eyes and let loose an appreciative grin. I felt myself grow warm. "Mr. Tesla, I…do appreciate the inclusion, but I…I've failed to note a single thing I have done to aide you that your fellows could not have accomplished on their own."

"You realized the capacitors were in the wrong sequence. Though a simple detail, it had eluded both me and my men for last days. You did it without even looking at the wiring diagrams. The windings in the resonance dome…do you realize how few people in the world are true experts at such fabrication? It is not a science, but an _art_." He sighed. "You have more than helped. I must confess a truth, however, Miss Comstock, a truth I regret but must acknowledge. When first I built this device, I had…assistance, but my collaborator became unavailable shortly after our final assembly…an assembly that was followed for reasons beyond me by the near destruction of the machine. On my own I managed to rebuild it, though my understanding of its function had always been…partial at best." Though he chuckled, a sadness had come over his face. "And the theory behind it _non-existent_. Consequently it has never functioned as splendidly as it did in those early days. For some time I convinced myself it was due to my lack of attention to some detail. Then after the years passed, I began to believe something was neither fundamentally wrong with my design nor calculations. Rather…" He looked away, spirit distant. "Working on it woke too many ghosts."

"You're talking about Rosalind, aren't you? You...you knew her."

At my words he looked to the men working on the machine's connections and ever so slightly agreed. "After what transpired so many years ago, I had resolved _never_ to return to this. My heart had been in the transmission of power through the earth and sky, and this was too exotic…too painful." He sighed. "And I was afraid of it. But things have not been so easy. In return for Mr. Morgan's continuing support of Wardenclyffe, I was forced in 1906 to…to extend promises…promises of what my transmission of power might accomplish. At the time I was faced with his imminent abandonment, and Mr. Westinghouse, Mr. Astor, though convinced of the inevitability of my dreams, well, for whatever reason they had only offered so much."

"Mr. Morgan had recently acquired the White Star shipping line. You might have heard of it. I convinced him that the transmissive power scheme should not only be able to send information from one side of the world, thus keeping his ships in contact with land, but also _power_ them…power them and enable a whole new paradigm of both seagoing and even aerial transport. I offered him nothing less than the elimination of coal from his steamers…the elimination of kerosene from Zeppelin's new airships, airships, which as you know, have already so upset the world of transport amongst the elite and landed classes. I offered it to him within five years."

"But…but something is wrong, otherwise we wouldn't be here." I said, observing Johnnison cranking a wire down with a wrench.

"The losses are too great." He answered, frustration in his voice. "I had guaranteed Mr. Morgan that by now we would be powering fully his growing fleets…but while our efforts have shown promise, I have had…difficulty in acquiring the boost in power I thought I might gain from resonating with the earth's innate currents. It is something I believe I know the reason for, but I am out of time."

"That's how you thought to power things with that lonely little generator house out there?"

Tesla nodded, arms crossed. "Current flows within the earth like a mighty river. I only had hoped to pry a bit of it lose."

"But you've not been able to, and now you're desperate." In the pit of my stomach I sensed a sinking dread. "Why…why the machine then? How can it possibly help?"

Clasping hands behind his back, he turned to look at his scientists' progress. "The machine is similar in many principles to my tower, but I was only the machine's co-designer. Its true master, as you have guessed…that was Rosalind."

"You said her book…"

"Was not of this world." Again his eyes turned to mine. "And, as you might have guessed, neither was she. This is why I was so piqued by your revelations. No one could have known about that book, let alone _her_." He offered his arm, which hesitantly I took. Together we walked toward the back of the room, back toward the door Booker and I had trespassed nights before. Away from his scientists, he offered me a seat upon a simple stool at a workbench. Beside me the other. "Now it is your turn."

"Mr. DeWitt…he would not be happy were I to tell you our story."

"I am not going to torture you, my winsome burglar. I will, however ask nonetheless. If you tell me…help me understand…I shall be happy. If you do not, well…I shall learn to live with disappointment." Feeling pressed upon I swallowed. He could see me nervous. "Then I suppose disappointment it is."

"So, what…what are we doing here tonight?" I eventually said, eager to break the awkward silence. "Why the machine?"

Tesla crossed his arms. "I do not see why I should divulge my secrets when you fail to loose yours." He rolled his eyes and sighed. "Very well, for months I have been hoping against hope that I would crack this nut…to figure out how to tap the earth's geoelectricity. Our successes, and we have had many, have unfortunately not been enough. Wardenclyffe is in great debt, Miss Elizabeth, and I needed something… _anything_ to show progress. Or lacking that, establish distraction. Several months ago I had a dream, a dream of _this_ machine that had for years sat burned out in crates and boxes. Instead of using it as a window…as someone has apparently done weeks ago…I thought to orient it upon that other world…Rosalind's world…to turn its _mouth_ not toward the _wall_ but toward the _surface_. A simple mathematical adjustment that when properly positioned the machine might act as a…"

"Magnet of sorts." I answered. "Not the right word, but the right idea. To pull the ship along."

"Mr. Telsa, the leads are connected to the building's amplifiers and we're ready for power."

The inventor turned to look at Johnnison and rose, offering his arm with a smile. "Who but you could possibly have guessed that? By using the natural attraction of the planet itself, we should be draw anything towards the portal, simply by orienting the destination mouth downward to the surface. Or provide propulsion by pulling on the waves…if oriented a forefront."

I took his wing and together we approached the machine, the men now stepping back and checking power cables. A metal shield they'd drawn from the wall, one with a heavy glass window in its upper middle. "So you intend to emplace one of these upon a vessel. But that doesn't solve the problem of power. You'll need a generator plant at least the size of Wardenclyffe not to mention the coal and kerosene. And if you place a tear machine at the prow of the ship, won't that just pull on the water and air?"

He patted my hand. "Yes, but for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction…the ship will move in either water or air. The issue of transmitted power, as I have said, that I am still working on." As we spoke Alfred positioned a basketball upon a wooden crate set symmetrically before the Tear Machine's window. "Places, gentlemen." Tesla said. Behind the metal screen with the crystalline window he offered me a place, while he stood just beside it. "Joseph, Alfred, Willie…stand aside. Hans, can you confirm the destination aperture has been reoriented ninety degrees?"

"Yes, Mr. Tesla."

"Very well, Mr. Johnnison. Would you do the honors?" Stepping to its side, the dark haired man took hold of the switch I'd pulled days before and threw it closed. A flash lit the room, the air screamed and my finger shocked. The scientists gasped and when I looked up holding my twinging appendage, I saw the basketball nowhere in sight.

"Where did it go?" Tesla asked, peering around the barrier to look at the undulating hole in the air…a hole that looked to be facing a concrete wall. With a bouncing sound I saw the ball come back through the tear, closer to the ground until a third time it hit the Bunker's concrete and bounced off the stepping disk. Freed from the invisible force, it rolled away into the workbench. With the machine still running we emerged, looking at the manifestation. Raising his hand to prevent any of his men getting closer, from his front pocket Tesla took a pen and tossed it out into the air before the portal. As it fell to the ground in an unnatural motion it arced toward the machine, sucked through it to clatter on the wall…or ground, I realized. Tesla was smiling, the gleam in his eyes growing brighter.

"Mr. Tesla." I whispered then said loud enough to be heard, not quite in a whisper as my hair started to blow from behind toward the burning hole. He turned to me, his expression of absolute vindication almost frightening.

"We have done it. I will have my time to find the answer to the riddle…this cannot be dismissed. We shall demonstrate it to Mr. Morgan and the Board of White Star _tomorrow_ night."

"It is going to be rather hard to move the machine and generator farm, don't you think?"

"There is no need, Miss Elizabeth. Though I might not yet be able to transmit the amount of power required to propel a ship, I can project the origin anywhere within the arc of my existing towers, and as we observed previously, Manhattan is more than within range of its effect. Mr. Morgan is in for a show."

"You can...can project it? How…how small can you make it?" I prodded, terrified somehow I was going to regret my words.

"I've no idea. I would not think small would be how we would wish to make a device which much supplant three or four liner's screws." I was looking up at him and eventually he realized that and returned the favor. "Why do you look so dire?"

I sighed. "Have you thought about what might happen if you affixed it to a vessel and oriented the portal to face _upward_?"


	11. To the Nines

**11\. To the Nines - **Saturday, August 3rd, 1912****

"I am _so_ excited for tonight and I'll tell you both...Robert cannot _wait_ to meet you!" Resplendent in a dark green gown, Katharine Johnson was already dressed for the evening when we arrived at the door of 327 Lexington, the woman's hair caught in fiery brilliance by the westering sun. As Oscar climbed the stairs behind us from with our meagre luggage, our hostess looked upon her guests with glee. "He is in our dressing room upstairs and shall be down shortly. Thank you so very much, Oscar..." She continued, offering with outstretched hand entry into her home. "We shall be an hour preparing. Do have the car ready and waiting for the ride over to the Morgan Mansion...we would hate to be late!"

Despite her gaiety I could see strain upon Katharine's face...not unhappiness, but worry betrayed by a subtle glance to the grandfather clock patiently ticking away at the end of the red-carpeted hall. For whatever reason Elizabeth hadn't caught on, for she looked over at me grinning ear to ear, perhaps as excited about anything as I'd seen her since we'd escaped the Bowery.

Down the hallway I heard a creaking, saw a man descending the similarly carpeted stair behind our hostess. Dressed in a tuxedo, his vest was white and pressed so tightly it looked like steel plate beneath his black-tailed jacket and bow tie. Hands clasped, Katharine turned back to greet him. "And here is my husband now. _Robert_ , might I introduce Mr. Booker DeWitt and his charge, Miss Elizabeth Comstock. _Miss Comstock_ is the new scientist Niki has been so excited about."

"Robert Johnson." He said, extending his hand without much of a smile. As in his pictures he was surprisingly older than his wife, fully gray where she had the vaguest hints. Still, with his immaculately trimmed beard and mustache, high cheeks and focused eyes, he was regal if dour. With fingertip he pressed his round spectacles back upon the bridge of his nose. "A pleasure to meet you, Mr. DeWitt."

"Likewise." I answered.

Having delivered a firm handshake, he turned to Elizabeth, took her hand and donated a kiss to its back. "Enchanted, Miss Comstock. So unusual to find a lady in such a field, not since Madame Curie have I heard of such. And so _young_."

"A great pleasure to meet you also, Sir." Again she smiled at me. I had half a suspicion she'd wanted to curtsy.

Giddily Mrs. Johnson took Elizabeth in arm, hustling her toward the stairs. "Gentlemen, we shall retire upstairs to prepare for the evening's festivities. Robert...could you show Mr. DeWitt to the Lexington side guest rooms? I've taken the liberty of hanging his tuxedo on the coat rack just inside the door upon the right, along with his shirt and shoes. You'll find your cufflinks upon the dresser!"

"Of course." He said. For a moment Elizabeth had turned to look at me, Katharine her husband. The women glanced at one another, tittered and were off.

"So..." Johnson said, tugging with this thumbs and fingers his black jacket downward. "Katharine informs me through that you are 'Tesla's new man,' and that also you were also in the Army?"

"For a fair shake of years."

As we passed through the second sitting room I could see that it had aside, from its dark red chairs and sofa, an excellent view of the cars passing by in the street below. Numerous pictures hung the walls, photographs of them when they were younger...daguerreotypes, really, alongside newer portraits of them like I'd seen in the halls. Prominently one of a young woman hung nearby, not Katharine but resembling her, alongside that of a handsome man of dark hair, his wife and children. "Our daughter, Agnes." Johnson enlightened. "And our son, Owen. He is quite the writer in his own right, you know."

"Writer in his own right? Is that what you do, Mr. Johnson? Many pardons...our introduction to your wife the other day was a whirlwind and we've not had the pleasure to learn much about you."

One of the doors from the salon was open, a door which led to a large bedroom with a bath off to its side. Like the sitting room the bedchamber sported a solid view of the streets below, cars making their way north and south and east and west. As we entered my tuxedo hung upon a dark wooden coatrack, on the bed ten feet away matching pants, white shirt, cummerbund and other accessories. The black top hat I'd selected the day before watched prominently over them.

"Yes, in fact I _do_ claim that, although professionally I am an editor. _Century Magazine_. I would be pleased if you'd heard of it."

Deciding whether to take my chances with a lie or reveal my lack of culture, I thought of Elizabeth and chose the latter. "Unfortunately, I've not had the pleasure. By your association with Mr. Tesla and the title, I garner you cover progressive topics?"

"An excellent manner of stating our interests..." He said, gesturing to the garments. "Although I do worry my efforts at advertising unsuccessful considering your unfamiliarity with of our publication. I shall take that as incentive to redouble them."

"I wouldn't take that as an insult, Mr. Johnson. I would say it's more like I haven't had the time for literary distractions."

His gaze narrowed. "I would not find that surprising. No insult intended either, but Katharine and I, we have known _many_ military men in our lives...several of whom we consider close friends. I would say a healthy portion have not had spare capacity for idle reading…the military man lives a busy life. As I have told them nearly to a man, over my years the stars were not kind for me in that manner, and I regret never having served. Do you mind me asking where you campaigned?"

Taking suit in hand, I lay the jacket out upon the bed and looked over shoulder his way. "The Philippines, mostly.

He shook his head. "Terrible business, that. Were you enlisted at the outbreak of the war?"

"You mean when Hearst blew up the _Maine_?"

For a moment he hesitated. For some such flippancy over important matters carried the tang of blasphemy. I'd thrown it out to gauge him...to know what kind of company we'd keep for the evening. "Well...I shall leave you to dress. When you are done, I shall be waiting in the Salon with refreshments."

As I dressed I wondered if I'd poked too far and too fast, but decided what was done was done. Fifteen minutes later, slipping my cufflinks into white cuffs, I emerged to find Robert alone in the room, ensconced in one of the plush leather chairs. Legs crossed, he was reading the third of a small stack of letters, sampling a sniffer in hand. At my arrival he looked my way and set the glass upon a coaster on the table beside him. "Remarkable." He said, smile thin, barely visible between the fading gray of his mustache and beard. He lent his weight to the chair's armrest and stood, walking to a table with several decanters and bottles upon it. "A spot of Brandy to start the evening?"

As he tipped it toward me I looked at that bottle for a long minute, tasting the liquor in my mouth. It was the first time in weeks I'd thought about booze...ever since we'd come back. Memories came now...memories of an alley years ago. Memories of Laslowe, or whoever he'd been...taking her. "No, but thank you." I managed with restraint. "I'm...trying to stop."

"Well, if not, then, perhaps a seat?" With a flourish he offered me a chair, and I obliged him by taking it. "Katharine and Miss Comstock will likely be some time yet in completing their task. Luckily we have much to discuss. Earlier you were telling me about your service? I believe a hint of politics slipped in?"

Again I found myself looking at the Brandy. "I came late to the war. Missed the big 'victory' party in Manila. Got there just in time with the First Kansas for the meat grinder.

"Water?" Johnson asked, to which I nodded. "I take it that you do not have kind words to say about our involvement there?"

As he poured me a tall glass of icy water I produced a grim smile, thoughts slipping back to the years before Elizabeth. Before the Pinkertons. "If you consider lies, betrayal and subjugation 'service,' sure...I have some kind words to say. Now the Philippines are an obedient little colony just like all of the Dutch East Indies, or the European concessions on the Chinese coastline."

"Before he died two years ago, a good friend of mine was Samuel Clemens. You might know him.

"Samuel Clemens? You mean _Mark Twain_?"

"The same, God rest his soul. You are not the only man to harbor such sympathies...in fact a great many men in Congress and otherwise did."

"Yeah…I read some of his writings on the matter. McKinley didn't seem to agree with him." I answered. "Nor Roosevelt…hell, Roosevelt practically started the whole thing, from what I hear tell."

Johnson nodded, looking at the caramel liquor in his glass. "Samuel and I talked long hours as to how and why we stumbled into that mess."

Remembering the burned-out villages and countryside of corpses, the crack of my Springfield in hand, 'mess' didn't begin to describe it. "It wasn't about the Philippines. It was about China. Hell, a hundred years from now it will still be about China."

"China? Despite what Mr. Hearst's papers proclaim, the Middle Kingdom is hardly a threat. It's partitioned...torn to tatters by the European powers, each with their coastal concessions."

"It wasn't the threat from the _Chinese_ that had Washington worried. Had we not stood our ground, the same fate would have come to the P.I. as China...and a finer coaling station and aerodrome in the western Pacific one could not find." They weren't my words, only ones I'd heard from Otis. Staring at my glass, I remembered how reasonable they'd sounded at the time…before we'd come onshore in Manila Bay and the killing had started. Reason didn't sound so reasonable after the thousands of dead…a mutual massacre that had made Wounded Knee seem like an orgy of altruism. "I guess the _Katipunan_ didn't get the memo about our 'good intentions'." I took a drink, wishing I'd accepted the Brandy instead.

#

"Well, what do you think?" Katharine said hands before her, almost as if she were offering a prayer. She'd spent the last hour working with my hair, and as I sat before her with the light casting in from the windows I developed the distinct impression this was what having an actual mother must have felt like. As I stared back into the mirror my locks were pulled back into a regal bun. To the sides of my face tendrils of stray hair fell, twisted and ephemeral, while my shoulders were mostly bare above a waist hugging blue gown dotted with studs of brilliant glass. I'd never had anyone help me dress before, not since I'd been a child…and that wasn't the same.

"It's beautiful..." I answered, feeling like a princess from a fairy tale. "Thank you so much, not just for your care, Misses Johnson, but your hospitality in general. I...I don't believe I've ever had one treat me so kindly."

"Please, Elizabeth...do call me _Katharine_." She said earnestly, though as she spoke the smile upon her face faltered. Realizing her emotion laid bare, she turned to dally with a pair of long white gloves from her dresser top.

"Mrs...Katharine...are you well?"

"I'm...sorry, Elizabeth." She wiped her eyes and turned, handing me the gloves. In my hands they felt light and cool, and I realized they were of silk. When first we'd met she'd captured briefly Booker's attention and I'd come to terms she was a beautiful woman. The attention she'd stolen from him had made me self-conscious...even jealous. I didn't feel that now.

"Katharine..." I said, placing my hand upon her shoulder. "Please, what is the matter?"

"Please pay me no mind." She answered, attempting to comport herself. "Seeing you in the gown, the mirror...it reminded me of Owen's wife, Mary."

"Owen is your son, is he not?" Remembering the pictures downstairs upon the walls.

"Yes. Mary...she passed away this last year. They lived in Paris and did not get to visit us often. Agnes and I...have not been on good terms, so this is no longer something I..." She stopped and for the moment seemed distraught. "As I said the other day…the house has grown...quieter...over the years." With her hand she reached out, brushing my cheek. "And it has been some time since we had interesting young guests."

I'd not thought of Booker as being overly young and wondered if she were prying. "You...suspect me and Mr. DeWitt of being...involved?" I stated without looking.

"I…would not blame you..." She said, looking out the window into the street. "He is a handsome man, perhaps older than many of my of my generation would accept for you but, then again, Robert is older. What can I say?"

"The observation had not escaped me." I said, slipping one of the gloves on hand, followed by the other. "I hope that doesn't bother you. We...cannot help who we fall in love with, can we?"

"No." She said quietly, and in her silence I heard volumes. She closed her eyes before a nervous laugh escaped her lips. "The matter is that Robert is...older...though not so far apart. He is but three years."

"Three...years?"

"You know, when I was your age I would have thought a failure to show one's years a blessing. Now when I attend parties I feel my former friend's looks…see them talking about Robert and me. Mostly me. I feel if somehow I've done something dreadful. She put a happy face on. "Let us finish you up."

Into her jewelry case she foraged, removing from its polished teak two glistening diamond earrings. They were beautiful and as she brought them before me they caught the evening sun like fire, each stone hanging from silver studs by flashing silver chains. "Oh, dear."

"What...what is it?" I asked, glancing around for her eyes had widened in surprise.

"You've not had your ears pierced."

"Ears...pierced?" I said, uncertain of her meaning but finding the sound of it awful.

"If I had only noticed that yesterday...my sincerest apologies. Perhaps I can find some earrings with clips, or..." She turned and looked at me. "How is it possible that a young lady of your refinement cannot have her ears pierced?"

Sheepishly I looked to her from under my eyebrows. "I had an austere upbringing."

Thwarted by my shortcoming, she set them back into her case and produced a matching diamond necklace. Like the earrings it was beautiful. "Perhaps we should set the choker aside for the evening. The necklace would clash."

I found my fingertips guarding it. "Katharine, the earrings and necklace are lovely, it's just that...that Mr. DeWitt bought this for me when we were at a low moment. I...couldn't bear to be without it."

Seeing my face, Katharine smiled and placed the jewels aside. With my hands in hers she sat me upon the side of the bed. "Does he know how you feel?" Quietly I nodded. Her eyes were sympathetic but the emotion inside I found them hard to look at. Insight was always followed by questions. "Might I ask how he came into your family's employee?"

"My Mother...died when I was born. And my Father...an untimely death, also. Mr. DeWitt has been my guardian practically ever since..." I paused, lying in the truth. "Ever since I've been in this world."

"I am so terribly sorry you've lived through such tragedy." She looked away and into the mirror. "Years ago...when Agnes was courted by an older man I...I did not have the kindest words for her. Oddly time and life changes one's impressions." She sighed deeply before turning back to me. "I would tell you to follow your happiness. If he is your man, then that is what God has intended." Without releasing my hands she rose, hauling up to look me over a final time. "So, the choker it is. Let us see how he reacts to _this_!"

"Robert, Mr. DeWitt..." She called, leading me from the room into the hall.

"Yes, Dear?" Her husband's voice answered. She motioned for me to remain, hurriedly carrying down the stair, turning at its base with clasped hands and a grin. "Gentlemen, may I introduce _Miss Elizabeth Comstock._ "

Hesitantly I took the handrail in one hand, the hem of my dress in the other. Halfway down the steps I stopped, seeing Mr. Johnson, round glass in hand, while beside him Booker and Katharine looked on. Dressed in tailed jacket, black pants, and bow tie beneath his white vest, both men wore spotless white shirts, tiny gold buttons adorning their center. In his tuxedo Booker cut a devilishly handsome figure, eyes wide and brow furrowed at my appearance, nose straight and sleek. His jaw was hanging slightly and from his glass I saw water spill before he caught it.

"Elizabeth..." He whispered.

Having achieved my objective, I descended the remainder of the stair and stopped before them. "Good evening, Mr. Johnson." I said before turning to Booker with a subdued little smile. "Good evening, _Mr. DeWitt_."

"What a vision." Robert Johnson said, holding his glass up toward me before taking a sip. "Almost as lovely as my Katharine."

"Oh, Robert!" She said, turning embarrassed with hand upon chest. She laughed and looked to me and the other man dressed to the nines. "You do look quite the couple."

Booker took my hand. "You look radiant, Miss Comstock." Raising its back to his lips while still looking into my eyes, he kissed it.

"As do you, Mr. DeWitt."

"It is about time." Katharine said. "I'll see if the car is waiting and we shall be off. "Nora? Are you in earshot?"

"Yes, Mrs. Johnson. What do you require?"

"Only that we are off for the evening and shall not be back until later, Dear. Could you please have the Lexington guest room and Owen's room beds turned down and a spot of water at the nightstand? I am thinking we shall have guests tonight."

"Yes, Mrs. Johnson. You can count on me."

"Wonderful." She said before heading to the front door. "Oscar is waiting. Good." She slipped past us into the sitting room, coming back with a shawl about her shoulders. Stopping before us, she let out a huff of relief and looked to her husband.

He downed his Brandy and offered the lady his arm. "Very well then. Let us be off!"

#

In the Johnson's elegant chariot Oscar drove us south on Lexington then west on 36th two blocks. There along the side of the road and set against the evening illumination of New York's skyline rose a three story brownstone, fronted by a pair of cupolas. Amid them a central stone stair led upward along a shallow, grassy slope to a rectangular portico, a landing showcasing great double doors bracketed by two pair of Greek columns. Above it watched the windows of a study, blinds half drawn such that the warmth light spilled out and we could see the silhouettes of people. All about the townhouse's illuminated flanks and windows vines spread upward, almost encasing the place, while below and around that surrounding lawn a wrought iron fence in the pattern of diamond grille set the estate off from the sidewalk.

"So very elegant." Elizabeth observed as the valets approached from both sides, opening the vehicle's doors for us. I stepped out and took Elizabeth's hand while on the curb side Robert did the same for Katharine. "So this is it?"

"Indeed." Robert said. "Morgan House, and just up Madison past the garden... _that_ cavernous residence..." He pointed. " _That_ is the home of his son, _Jack,_ a twin to his father if ever I've seen one. I've been here a time or two and last I heard tell from Mr. Edison, Pierpont acquired it in the early 80s...all in all, the compound has forty-five rooms including twelve bathrooms...should you need one." To me Elizabeth smirked and giggled.

Having thanked Oscar, Johnson's wife considered her husband and straightened herself. With our ladies on arm, Robert and I headed up the steps. Arriving at the double doors I could hear music, while a tuxedoed man stood to either side stood by to open the portals. The doors parted to reveal the lavish length of a grand foyer, music louder and spilling out onto the street. Dozens milled within, couples sipping cocktails, conversing upon a red carpet laid down the center of a polished, cut stone floor. Along the walls stood small pedestals and statues, upon the walls sashed red curtains, curtains whose drawn tassels framed a dozen paintings.

At our entry a doorman nodded politely and gestured to a guest book which Robert signed, followed by me. As he took Katharine's arm anew, an older lady approached, dressed in a fine if matronly gray gown adorned by a brocade of flowers. I had seen her before...on the _First Lady_.

"Booker?" Elizabeth whispered and I realized the blood must have drained from my face." What...what is it?"

"I..."

"Robert, Katharine...oh, do thank you for coming!" She said, taking Robert's free hand.

"Thank you for your invitation, Frances." Katharine replied with a smile. "I know you don't get into the City that often and it was wonderful to hear you'd be visiting."

"Well, you know Pierpont. So many matters to attend to all of the time. With his dealings in Europe it's not just the City we don't made it into often." Glancing over her shoulder she grinned. "There he is now. Pierpont, do come over here, Dear."

At her summons the man glanced our way and again I froze, remembering him too from the railings of the _First Lady_ as we'd pushed east out over Long Island Sound. Cigar in hand he seemed to sigh, rolled his eyes and slipped through grand double doors down the hallway. "I...believe he must not have heard me." She said, the poor woman attempting to paper over her embarrassment. "Might I ask who this dapper young man and his lady are?"

"Frances..." Katharine said still with a smile. "May I introduce _Miss Elizabeth Comstock_? She is an acquaintance of Mr. Tesla's and a new researcher at Wardenclyffe. This gentleman..." She said, turning to me with an appreciative smile. "Is Mr. DeWitt. Her evening's accompaniment."

"And your profession, if I might ask?" Frances asked.

"That of security and arms." I answered stoically. "Miss Comstock's, err, father, retained me to ensure the lady's safety, seeing as we're from...Columbia." In one of those odd moments amidst a muttering crowd a lull suddenly took place, and I found no one but me speaking and Robert, Katharine, Frances and Elizabeth looking on. "Missouri."

"Missouri, then?" She smiled perfunctorily and looked to my girl then the Johnsons. "Well, many of our dinner guests have already arrived, and as you know there will be dancing afterward for those who wish to partake, perhaps even some singing." Behind us the doors opened anew and a top-hatted man and his middle aged wife entered. "Daniel, Lutetia..." She said, clasping hands together. "How lovely of you to make it."

Katharine shrugged and Robert chuckled, and as the evening's hostess greeted her new guests we made our way through the hall. "So, now what do we do?" Elizabeth whispered, and though she was smiling it was that nervous smile I'd noticed of her in crowds.

"Hey, you're okay." I said, squeezing her upper arm and hand in mine.

"They're all...looking at me." She said, angst troubling her words. From corners of eyes I could see lingering glances...from the women envy as we passed.

"That's because you're very much worth looking at." I said.

She didn't look at me but her smile grew...felt her fiddling with my hand to gain better purchase. Morgan, Astor, White, King, Westinghouse, Tesla...those names and many more came in a whirlwind as the Johnsons introduced us one by one to the prominent and mighty of New York City. In all I counted twenty people, the men like Robert and I in black coattails, hats left in the coatroom near the door, the ladies all in fine gowns. We exchanged small talk for about an hour, the men interested in what I did and the women in where Elizabeth had gotten her gown. As the topics had begun to drift towards details I was certain neither Elizabeth nor I were comfortable with, a dinner chime rang. One by one the Ladies and their Gentlemen began to file into the massive dining hall of the Banking King.

The chamber looked out through three great windows onto the back garden, the walls trimmed with wooden panels of mahogany. Up its center and beneath hanging chandeliers of untold intricacy ran a long table fifty feet in length, enough for all of Morgan's guests to sit comfortably. And comfortable our seats were, red backed leather and of the finest wood to match the wall panels. Amidst the placements of fine china neatly set at every seat rose candelabras, four large candles ensconced in glass atop golden candlesticks, while atop each a singular candle stood watch. Flowers and decanters of wine and water dotted the table, along with multiple services of silverware.

Glancing at the table, Katharine nudged her husband and pointed towards two chairs two thirds down and away from the head. As we followed them to stand like the other assembling guests behind our seats, Elizabeth glanced toward the far doorway to see Morgan and two other gentleman, one tall and mustachioed and handsome, while the other one looked entirely like a younger version of Morgan himself. "Who are _they_?"

She'd whispered to me, but Katharine responded anyway. "That is Mr. John Jacob Astor." She said. "Not only one of Nikola's backers but a principal Board member of White Star. The man beside him and Mr. Morgan is Jack, Mr. Morgan's son. Oh..." She exclaimed, following the men like most others as they made their way along the window side of the room. Near the head of the table Tesla had appeared, chatting with grand gestures of his hands to a more portly, gray haired gentleman. "There is Nikola now!"

"We're rather far away." Elizabeth muttered, gazing jealously down the table towards Tesla and his benefactors.

"Unfortunately, my Dear...that is because in the grand scheme of things we are rather unimportant." Robert observed. "If we mind our manners, we might endeavor to alter that situation."

"Ladies and Gentlemen." Morgan said, turning from his discussion with his son and Astor to Tesla and the other man. "May I have your attention, please?" Despite our distance down the table, we were closer than we'd been in the Foyer and I could see the man clearly now as he addressed the table...a full head of hair salt and peppered, handlebar mustache and the most intense eyes. On the _First Lady_ we'd talked, but with this man _never_. And something was different, and I couldn't place my finger on it until I realized not only was his hair _not_ white, not only was his skin supple and nearly devoid of wrinkles, but that great purple, knobby nose I'd been so careful not to notice on the _First Lady's_ railings was of the most normal color, unaffected by whatever ailment had cursed the man in that other world. He almost looked...young. Like his son. "Welcome friends of the White Star. I am so pleased that you could all make the evening, the first we have had together since the commencement of regular transatlantic service by _Olympic_ and _Titanic_ between our eastern seaboard aerodromes and destinations in the United Kingdom and upon the Continent." With us tonight I am pleased to introduce Mr. J. Bruce Ismay, President of the White Star Line… in just today on _Olympic_."

A gentle clapping rose from about the table, a thin, dark haired and mustachioed man rising to accept the accolades. After a moment of soaking it in he offered the gathering a modest clasp of his heart and took to his seat.

"And an auspicious evening it is, for our bookings are growing by the day and demand for safe aerial passage, pioneered by this company against all doom saying, proven the transport of the future." Again there was clapping and smiles all about the table. "Now Cunard, Holland and Hamburg America and, not to mention Orient are all trying to catch up with us and Norddeutscher Lloyd…the only shipping lines to have foreseen the coming revolution. They are saddled with fleets of seagoing dinosaurs while it is we who race across the heavens. Frances and I wish to thank you for your long hours and hard work, toil that over the last three years has made this dream our common reality. A dream that has inspired not only North America but the world!"

More clapping.

"Before our dinner begins, Jack and I would like to introduce our very special guest, whom you all know or have heard of…Mr. Nikola Tesla, the Wizard of Hudson Street, whose prowess in the ether has enabled our ventures not only to be safer but more profitable. Tonight, Nikola informs me he has a prodigious development that we lucky few shall be the first...in the world...to witness." At Morgan's words his wife looked to him and smiled, while about the table a tremor of excitement rose.

Beside me Katharine leaned in to whisper. "It is great privilege for people here in New York to see Niki's experiments, Mr. DeWitt...hundreds used to gather when he'd open his lab, just hoping for a glimpse of the magic within...and now something new...doubly so! I am so excited!"

"I hope I shall not dampen your anticipation, but that shall be _after_ dinner and our adjournment for business. So, without further ado let the dinner service commence!" Precisely at the conclusion of Morgan's address, dozens of wait staff approached from behind, coming to our sides with salads drizzled with some variety of dark red dressing upon fine porcelain plates. I doubted Elizabeth had ever sampled such fare, and leaves were generally not to my taste. Uncertain as what to do, an antsy girl glanced silently to me for guidance. With a sigh I smirked, taking in that uncertain smile of her, the eyes and elegance of her hair and profile. To the accompaniment of the live ensemble in the adjacent salon, more plates were brought out and set upon the table, steaming filet mignon set beside the previous course. I couldn't deny it looked and smelled delicious. As the waiters charged our wine glasses, a quiet came over the table. Down at the head I saw Morgan once more stand and bow his head. "Let us pray." About the table the gathering bowed their heads. "Heavenly Father, we thank you for this meal we are about to receive and the fine company we share it in. Help us to remember the less fortunate in life, those who do not have what we are blessed with, and help us in our lives to provide them succor and shy from the temptations of avarice and plenty. In the name of our Blessed Savior we pray, Amen."

"Amen." We answered, a gentle murmur rising and resonating off the arches of the ceiling.

As our host sat and spoke a few words with the head waiter the dinner goers looked on. At the head of the table Morgan sized up his fare, a green salad which he smirked at and pushed aside for the main course. Subtly down the table many did the same, but not Elizabeth. "What is this?" She asked, genuinely puzzled with the smatter of crimson drowned green.

"Why it's a salad, my Dear." Robert said with amused curl of his mustache, eyes crinkling as he shared his humor with his wife. "A vegetable."

Elizabeth tried a tentative bite and chewed for a moment, eyes widening. "I think I like it."

"You don't let her out much, do you DeWitt?" Robert grinned. Amongst the gathered at the table neither of them had followed the host's lead. Taking after my girl, they began picking at the rabbit food.

"Now Robert, don't tease the poor man." Katharine giggled. "New York City ways are certainly new to the both of them."

"Where did you say you came from, again?" He asked.

"Columbia." His wife answered for us, causing the couple across from us to look up from their whispered conversation past the candelabra. For a moment I felt my heart skip and saw Elizabeth's eyes wide, hand frozen mid-air as she positioned a few shoots before her lips. "Missouri." Robert nodded and took a bite. The air came out of us both.

"Why, James is from Jefferson City...just down the river from Columbia." The lady in yellow gown said. "And your sister Mary lives there, doesn't she, Henry?

"Yes, she does, as did I when I was a child." From his meal the balding gentleman looked up, dabbing his mustachioed lips with a white napkin. "Henry Saltonstall." He said.

"Mr...Mr. DeWitt." Elizabeth said, her words hanging until I realized I'd frozen looking at the man and his wife. Morgan wasn't the only man I'd met on the _First Lady_.

With distinct unease I offered my hand." "Booker DeWitt."

Still struck by the happenstance, Elizabeth and I exchanged small talk for the next thirty minutes, the man elaborating about how he had been an early investor in _White Star_ under Ismay and how he had been so delighted at Morgan's acquisition he'd sought a position of governance. From what I gathered, he was something of a legend in place we were supposedly from. He liked to talk and I let him.

As he bantered, I turned my eyes to the master of ceremonies. Morgan was physically large with massive shoulders, a gray handlebar mustache and eyes so dark and intense they seemed to spear you. As a light orange sherbet was brought out in small silver goblets, the twin doors to the foyer opened and Laslowe entered.

"Booker..." Elizabeth whispered, taking hold of my forearm. Saltonstall was still pontificating as the ginger came to Morgan's side at the head of the table, exchanging a word and short conversation. Casually Laslowe's eyes turned our way, exchanging a glance with us before taking his leave.

"Man, are you quite all right?" From my side I heard Saltonstall's voice and gathered my wits.

"Yes. My apologies." I looked at the iced cream, seeing from the corner of my eye a similarly dismayed Elizabeth. Taking the small silver spoon beside the dessert upon the tray, I shaved a curl of it off and took a bite. Having stifled our conversation, he and his wife took to their own confection, an awkward silence ensuing, but how could it not? I'd seen the man's scalp nailed to a bloody board in a place that didn't exist.

After some minutes and the rise of conversation Morgan surveyed the quorum. "Ladies and Gentlemen, in preparation for the evening's entertainment later, I would request that the Gentlemen present adjourn to my study. We have some topics as well as cigars to discuss and shall rejoin you presently." With smiles and adjustments to their jackets and ties the men about the table rose, donating small affections to their wives and assurances they'd soon return.

As I did the same, Elizabeth looked at me anxiously, glancing across the table apprehensively as the women she'd soon be dealing with. "Booker..."

"Don't worry about it, Elizabeth." I said, patting her white gloved appendage with a calming smile. I didn't like her being out of sight particularly with the otherworldly weirdness afoot, but knew for forms' sake I'd no choice...no men were staying behind. Though we barely knew her, I took comfort knowing that Katharine was. "You'll do just fine."

#

I'd worked for Robber Barons a time or two, but I'd never been in one of their houses. As we departed the dining hall for the foyer we made for a rotunda on the opposite end of the doors we'd earlier entered, treading the red carpet black and white checkered tile floors to a wide and winding circular marble stair. About the domed chamber paintings curved round its walls, in some places hung upon each other three and four high. I wasn't much on art, but recognized the works and circle of statuary upon the tile below as more than simple family heirlooms. "Nice finger-painting." I muttered to Johnson and Saltonstall.

"Indeed." Robert answered, eyes straying along with the other men around the works. "Van Gogh, Monet, Raphael, Rembrandt...I'd heard Mr. Morgan's collection to be impressive, but this surpasses the imagination."

"So he's loaded. That's what you're trying to tell me?"

Stepping foot on the red carpet of Morgan House's second story, Saltonstall answered. " _Loaded_ would be an understatement."

Down a hallway we passed, more paintings and statuary lining its walls, walls draped red with curtains. Upon tables lay curious artifacts under glass. The place smelled of lacquered wood and burnt cash. Ahead Morgan and his son led our procession, chatting with Astor and Tesla as a doorman parted great oaken doors to a voluminous chamber of gold-trimmed red carpet. Inside sat two crimson chairs, plush along with a similarly clad sofa between them, bracketed by walls of books...books to the ceiling. Where there were no books paintings adorned its walls while in the corner a polished grandfather clock's golden hands marked the hours. Not far from it upon a long table a black shroud covered lengthwise a cylindrical shape.

"Welcome, Gentlemen, to my study, my _sanctum sanctorum_." The elder Morgan announced. "Feel free to solicit my men for refreshments. A selection of cigars are available, including my Meridianas Kohinoor. I hope you find them as enchanting as I." As he spoke his domo poured himself a glass of something dark and caramel, acquiring a roll of tobacco from a silver tray that seemed the side of a tree branch.

In tuxedos and white vests the 'friends of the White Star,' or whatever Morgan had called them, descended upon the booze and stogies. Whereas Robert deferred to only a sniffer of his favored Brandy, Saltonstall took both, holding in one hand his glass while admiring the massive cigar in the other. "I hear these called 'Hercules' Clubs.' He said with an appreciative shake. A full twelve inches long, the stogie looked like a small tree trunk. After admiring its girth, he allowed a white jacketed Negro servant to light him up. Alongside my companions I took a sniff and allowed the man to do the same. At the head of the room before an unlit fireplace Morgan was speaking with the mustachioed crowd, Astor and Ismay joining them to clink glasses together and drink. Smiling and laughing, Telsa seemed to be in his element.

"So, DeWitt…" Can't help but saying it, but you do seem familiar? When is the last time you've been in in Jefferson City?" Saltonstall asked, obviously enjoying his smoke. How had he recognized me?

"Not for some months."

Robert's brow furrowed and Saltonstall shook his head. "By golly, I don't ever forget a face, and I could swear…"

"Gentlemen, might I have your attention please?" The chamber's high ceilings had begun to collect our smoke, twin fans above stirring the miasma. As Morgan spoke the only sound in the room was their gyration. "I realize that many of you must have wondered of the letters Mr. Ismay sent you over the last month, and I regret to inform that I have been in a bit of a quandary as to how to respond. I'd not wished to call attention to the matter anymore than absolutely required, and felt our gathering tonight a moment we might satisfactorily broach the subject."

Looking to Astor, another graying gentleman and the Morgans in particular, Morgan's man Ismay proceeded to address us and the curve of puffing men. "As my letter intonated and you may have heard in the papers, there was an incident on _Titanic_ midway across the North Atlantic on her way to London this past June 7th. I must request that you keep this matter in strictest confidence as our profitability would be adversely affected were news of such to slip into the public domain. Apparently one of the main fuel tanks was damaged during the inadvertent penetration of an electrical storm over the mid-Atlantic. This contributed to the outbreak of a fire onboard, which had it not been contained by the valiant efforts of Captain Smith and his men, might have left us ruined...not to mention hundreds of souls given over to the sea. Although the passengers were only vaguely aware of how close we came to disaster, the crew was very much so. As was I. As you might have heard, both I and Mr. Astor were onboard."

Mumbles rose from the entourage, some of them having ceased their inhalation at the news, cigars now producing sinuous billows in hand. "The newspapers both here and in Britain were keen to trumpet this matter, and of course we played it down. However, the truth was far darker than White Star has publically acknowledged. Over the last month our engineers in Belfast have been hard at work finding a method to reinforce and ground the tanks so that such an event might not recur in the future, however, as you well know the mechanics of airships are held in a tight balance...any weight added shall inevitably decrease the passengers we can carry. Fortunately another possibility has presented itself to resolve this malady, one we have Mr. Tesla to thank for. I am certain all here are aware of his contributions to Mr. Morgan's efforts? Nikola?"

Having eschewed cigar or libation, Tesla had seemed apprehensive during the man's speech, but with his name called the inventor nodded to two of Morgan's house men and strode forth. Into the midst of the crowd he established his presence, coming to a halt over what I now could clearly see to be a marked spot upon the floor. At his behest his two servants brought the black-shrouded object forth, placing it with some adjustment upon the spot. As if an omen had passed the quorum our circle fell back, bow tied men wondering at the covered mystery in their midst. "Gentlemen. As you know, I have been at the edge of scientific advancement for many years. When first I approached Mr. Westinghouse about the possibility of the plant at Niagara Falls, the possibility had already entered my mind of something even greater. Surely you have all heard of our developments at Wardenclyffe, and I am here today not only to confirm that we have been probing the possibility of electrical transmission via the ether, but that we have indeed _perfected_ it." At Tesla's statement approval rose from the gathering, Ismay pleased. This was no shock to him. Looking back over his shoulder, Tesla nodded to Morgan's men and they withdrew the sheet of black silk, revealing a sleek, silver cylinder much like a cigar, adorned by two lengthy gondolas underneath. At its stern four great tail planes rose, top, bottom and to the sides, the uppermost red, emblazoned with the airship line's signature white star, while the bottom one carried the moniker _RMS Olympic_ with alongside the red, white and blue of the Union Jack. Four egg-like engines adorned its sides.

"Lovely model." I heard one of the men say. "Pity it's the wrong flag." At his quip chuckles arose, though not from Ismay.

"It is indeed a model, George." Tesla answered, eyes aflame as he turned to Morgan's guests. "But as you shall soon see, oh so much more." Upon a pillow one of Morgan's men brought him an elegant black telephone trailing a cord upon the red carpet, its handset inlaid with gold filigree. Tesla picked up its handset and took it to his ear and mouth. "Hello, Operator? Please connect me with the Wardenclyffe laboratory, Shoreham 45750." On pins and needles the assemblage waited, Tesla reveling in the spotlight. He took the opportunity to smirk. "Alfred, Hans…it is _Nikola_ and the time is now. The coordinates are as we agreed upon earlier." Walking to the model, he drew a sleek antenna with a small bulb upon its end from the curved cigar's top as the cord trailed behind him across the rug. "You may bring the generator house up to full capacity and commence transmission. I shall set the telephone aside for the moment, for safety's sake. Power the machine but hold it in reserve." Walking to Morgan's desk, he set the pillow down.

"Gentlemen…" He said. "Please stand back."

The lights flickered in the room and even, I noticed, out in the street. Upon the model the four motor pods I'd thought mere decoration began to whine and their propellers spin. A gasp arose from the crowd. Tesla nodded and Morgan's head domo dimmed the lights, to where we could see the zeppelin lit from within by dozens of small bulbs.

"You must have a battery in there." The man nearest Tesla said, his astonishment making his hair even whiter in the ghostly light.

"I assure you, Mr. Westinghouse, there is no battery within…the power you see before you is coming from Wardenclyffe, some fifty, even sixty miles away. The miniature motors are _my_ design, all electric using the principles I have pioneered over the last twenty years. So, you see…" He continued, looking eye to eye with every man in the room until finally his gaze landed upon Morgan and his son. "We have succeeded. Not only are my designs for the _Olympic_ classes' induction motors _half_ the weight of the _most_ efficient diesel designs available, but our vessels, relieved of the need to transport fuel, shall gain nearly 120,000 pounds of carrying capacity…enough to embark up to 63 additional passengers over and above the current 97! And all of this at only the minor cost of refitting fuel tankage for cabins. Of course there are details to be worked out, but one must concede that the margin of profitability is increased by _64 percent_."

About the chamber mumbles erupted, men standing with their cigars depositing ash steadily upon the carpet, forgotten by their spellbound owners. Of them all Ismay and Astor were perhaps the most pleased, and in Ismay's gaze in particular I could see dollar signs. As his son and Ismay exchanged congratulatory handshakes, the elder Morgan stood like an iceberg amidst them all, unmoved. I saw him glance to Tesla with the barest nod of approval. Tesla grinned.

"I have made the most sincere recommendation to Mr. Morgan, and now you, members of the Board and our principal investors, that _Majestic_ and _Iconic_ be placed on _hold_ for modifications to their drawings, and though we may perhaps wait six months to see their frames rigged the outcome is, as you might understand, well worth it. By now the gathered White Star men were not only excited but the volume of noise in the room was rising. One would have thought us at a Roman triumph. Tesla raised his hands. "My friends, my friends…" He said, prompting the gradual turn of attention from me with profit in their eyes. "There is but one final matter I wish to address. One…new development...that I wish to reveal." As he spoke Morgan's brow puzzled, the men grew quiet and I gained the feeling that none knew what he was speaking of…including the old man. "These developments, these miracles of which I have shown you…they are set in stone. They are known _fact_. But there is one _surprise_ I have not yet discussed…not with _any_ of you." He glanced to the Morgans and Ismay who were by now just as confounded as the rest of us.

"Over the last weeks, a refinement upon some of my earlier research has yielded...unanticipated results. Results I must say that I was entirely reluctant to bring to anyone's attention lest they prove illusory. But as of tonight…" His eyes happened my way. "I am here to announce that what is to come shall not only _cement_ the airship industry in its relationship with ocean going liners, but render the latter _utterly obsolete_." He walked to the pillow and took the receiver in hand. "Hans? Yes. Please tell the men at the tower they have performed stupendously. Everyone is in entranced." For a moment he paused. "Yes, it is time. Proceed with the final demonstration." The room was silent now, men muttering to one another as again he took center stage amid the carpet. "Gentlemen, behold...the _future_ of transportation…"

For a moment nothing happened, and as usual the mumble of the gathering began to increase. A shudder shook the desks and lamps and paintings around us, the chandeliers high above wavering with the sounds of tinkling crystal. The silver cigar of the _Olympic_ was still humming with the sounds of its thumb sized motors, but as we stood about it a glow seemed to shimmer and above it a slender shear of fire tore at the air. Glacially the vessel rose off of its wooden mountings, lifting supernaturally five feet in the air to the gasps from Morgan and his men. Somewhere in the eerie dark a glass fell to the floor and shattered. Eyes were wide, caught somewhere between awe and horror as if they'd seen a ghost.

I certainly had.

At Morgan's side white haired Westinghouse stumbled, as did several of the attendees. Having riveted his audience's attention, Tesla confiscated a heavy glass paperweight from Morgan's desk, walking with eyes upon on the shocked men and to the hovering dirigible. "My friends…" He said, holding the glass ball before him. "It is not only the mastery of lighter than air flight that my researches have unlocked…" Into the air beside the hovering model he released the token, and rather than falling it _tumbled_ , rolling, suspended midair like the leviathan. "We have bested _gravity_ itself. No longer shall the sky be the realm of zeppelins and other such craft, but soon we shall have the power to loft the likes of Cunard's _Lusitania_ into the breathless heights. Even whole _cities_. The age of the aerial leviathan has arrived!"

#

Down the stairs we headed afterward, the 'Friends of the White Star' to a man in stunned silence as we emerged into Morgan's ballroom. Having departed the steps I walked past the alcove and band into an opulent chamber to find Elizabeth with Robert and Katharine. Immediately her gleeful smile at my return soured. "What…what is it?" She said.

"Robert, Katharine, do you mind if I speak to Elizabeth privately for a moment?"

"Not at all." He answered, detecting my mood no momentary fluctuation.

"There is Madeline now, speaking with Frances. Perhaps we should say hello?" Katharine observed, attending our hostess and the woman I'd seen Astor with earlier.

"Good luck." Robert said, taking his wife's arm. "Enjoy mingling with the crust of New York society. We shan't be far."

"What on earth happened up there?" She asked with concern.

"What did you tell him?" I growled before glancing back from Morgan and his son who'd just entered the room, Tesla in their midst.

"I…" By her face I could tell she _had_ told him something, for guilt was written all over it. "Booker, I couldn't help it. He was on the verge of a great epiphany on how to use the tear machine and I…I…"

" _Elizabeth!_ " I said, taking her by the upper arm and hauling her off behind the curtains that hung around the ballroom's periphery. "I _knew_ this was a bad idea. _All_ of this. You gave him the lift cell!"

"No!" She exclaimed and brushed my hand away. "I did not! I…I only pointed out that he might orient the machine differently and build it onto a vessel!"

"Like an _airship_?" I was glaring at her now, and beneath that withering gaze she wouldn't look at me. "Tesla is _brilliant_! You think…you think he won't make the connection? He already has motors the size of the palm of my hand! He'll realize the way to do it, and then…"

"And then what?" She snapped back, brow suddenly tight, the girl's voice low but barely. "You said it yourself, Booker…there is _no_ Comstock in this world. If there were, _you'd_ be him and _you_ certainly aren't the one lording over this city!" For a moment I stood there gobsmacked, the venom of her retort reverberating in my ears. She saw it too, and instantly her countenance changed. "Oh, please, Booker...that didn't come out like I meant it too!"

"You remember what we found in the Liftworks, don't you?" I sniped. "What Lutece invented and what your Father was getting ready to unleash? You've just done that _here_! The genie, Elizabeth…it's out of the bottle and hell is going to follow!"

"Having a lover's quarrel?" I heard from behind us, and together we turned to find Laslowe accoutered in tuxedo.

"What is your game here, Laslowe?" I said, putting myself between Morgan's man and her.

"No game, DeWitt…only to congratulate you again…both of you, on your successful repatriation." To Elizabeth he offered his hand. "My Dear, you look enchanting. Allow me to introduce myself, for we have not met. At least not in person. I am Robert Laslowe, President of Electrical Holdings, Incorporated…one of Mr. Morgan's enterprises and a close adviser to International Mercantile Marine's Board. Your father and I met last week. A pleasant experience, I might add…save for the gun."

Still flustered at our falling out, Elizabeth swallowed and offered the man her gloved hand. "A pleasure, Mr. Laslowe." She said with a troubled glance back toward me. "I have heard a great deal about you, and now we finally meet."

"And with much to discuss when time allows." Laslowe continued as he kissed it. "There is someone who would like to meet you."

"And who might that be?" I interjected with a growl.

Champaign glass in hand, Laslowe turned toward the fore of the chamber where the musicians were setting up for the evening's festivities, and Tesla's men an odd red carpet upon the chamber's floor. Morgan the elder was talking excitedly with Astor and his son, Tesla beside them making grand gestures with his hands over the newly emplaced fabric. As we looked Morgan's eyes rose to us unflinching. "Not you, I am afraid, DeWitt. Only the lady."

"You _aren't_ going with him." I growled.

"Booker…" Elizabeth protested, removing herself from my protection. "You're being rude! It's not...not like he's going to steal me away in front of everyone!" I glared at them and turned to walk away, feet determined upon the polished tile of Morgan's dance floor. "Where are you going!?"

"Home." I hissed, uncaring as Elizabeth's face fell. "You can stay with the Johnsons tonight for all I care.

#

My heart was torn as Laslowe walked us toward the masters of the evening, and though I wanted to glance back at Booker I couldn't get over how boorish his behavior had been. My gaze remained ahead, even as great heaves churned my stomach.

"Ah, and here she is now, our laboratory's little songbird. "Miss Elizabeth Comstock, might I introduce Tesla RC's backers, Mr. John Jacob Astor and Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan." Before me were Tesla and three gentlemen, all dressed in black tuxedos, white vests and white bowties.

"Gentlemen." I said, feeling almost sick.

"My Dear…" Mr. Astor began. We were only just hearing from Mr. Tesla about the contributions you have made at Wardenclyffe over the last weeks. Such a prodigy. So, it is true that you have dealt with this electrical propagation theory of his?"

Not knowing what 'electrical propagation theory' was, I smiled. "Yes. I've had some experience with it, though my education has been somewhat non-traditional."

"Mother…" Morgan's son said from behind his father and Astor. "This is Mr. Tesla's female scientist we've heard about." From her conversation with a pair of other wives, the woman who had greeted us in the Foyer turned.

"Well, so she is! We met earlier at the entry."

"Where is your man?" The elder Morgan asked, prompting a palpable cringe by his wife. In hand he had a huge cigar, now half burnt but still smoldering.

"He is…over by the drapes, waiting." I answered, wishing to avoid those eyes. "The invitation to meet you was for me alone."

"That will not do, Tesla…" Astor said. The woman who'd been conversing with Morgan's wife approached. "Have him come visit for a moment. I'm certain Madeline would like to know who has won this young lady's heart."

Still mad and upset yet most especially chagrinned I'd been thrust into a social situation without him, I turned back to find Booker but against the curtains found him absent. "Are you quite all right?" I heard Misses Morgan's voice say.

I turned back to them, gloved hands clasped and produced again that smile, even as I wanted to cry. "He…does seem to have stepped out."

Undeterred by my obviously troubled state Tesla continued on, the light in his eyes electric. The dresses and trip to the Ladies' Mile made sense now, along with Katharine's tutelage. "Gentlemen, Miss Comstock has been _instrumental_ the recent advancement I demonstrated upstairs. For purposes we discussed earlier, I should not go into any details here other than to say that aside from being uncannily attuned with this science, she is one of the hardest working individuals I have had the privilege of conspiring with." To me his eyes turned and he grinned, perhaps trying to lighten my demeanor. "Did I mention also she has the voice of an _angel_?" If it hadn't before, the rest of my blood drained from my face, though about us now the men and women gathered around and seemed delighted, in particular Frances Morgan and Madeline Astor. "Dear Elizabeth, would it be possible for you to sing for us tonight?"

Having seen the millionaires gathered at the front of the room, couples aside from Tesla's instigators had been approaching our congregation, and to our right even the band was listening. Save for a handful of outlying conversations, the chamber grew quiet. I swallowed, laughed nervously, and nearly fled for all of the eyes hanging upon my reply. "I…I suppose I could try."

#

I'd not known Morgan's place had a balcony beyond the curtains, but with Elizabeth choosing insanity over common sense I'd had enough. She'd be fine with Katharine and Robert I supposed, but as elbows on balustrade I looked out over Park Avenue to the steady stream of cars going by, I couldn't help but feel something had shifted between us. She was my daughter, and in the twenty years since I'd abandoned her nothing had changed that fact. She was bright and desirable, and as she'd so poignantly pointed out, I was not. I was, in fact...nothing.

I needed to let her fly.

Against the honks and toots of night time automobiles and the occasional whinny from a teamsters' charge I choked back regret, feeling as though I'd been kicked in the gut by one of those horses. And just when I thought I might hop those rails...disappear into the night lit streets and alleys for good, I heard a young woman's voice carry from the open French doors…a voice I'd heard before in an impossible tower.

 _Quando sono solo_

 _Sogno all'orizzonte_

 _E mancan le parole_

 _Sì lo so che non c'è luce_

 _In una stanza quando manca il sole_

 _Se non ci sei tu con me, con me_

At her words my ears perked and I stood up straight, turning to peer through the curtains into the warm glow of the ballroom. Between me and her the backs of darkly clad men and women in gowns imposed themselves. Moving slowly to the drapes, I drew them away to see the crowd about Morgan, his son and Tesla…saw their eyes looking to the brunette jewel amidst them.

 _Su le finestre_

 _Mostra a tutti il mio cuore_

 _Che hai acceso_

 _Chiudi dentro me_

 _La luce che_

 _Hai incontrato per strada_

 _Time to say goodbye_

 _Paesi che non ho mai_

 _Veduto e vissuto con te_

 _Adesso si li vivrò_

 _Con te partirò_

 _Su navi per mari_

 _Che, io lo so_

 _No, no, non esistono più_

 _It's time to say goodbye_

By now I was certain it _was_ her singing, finding myself drawn to the back of the crowd. As she continued I insinuated myself further into the dilettantes and their ladies, brushing through listening couples until coming eventually to the fore.

 _Quando sei lontana_

 _sogno all'orizzonte_

 _e mancan le parole,_

 _e io sì lo so_

 _che sei con me,_

 _tu mia luna tu sei qui con me,_

 _mio sole tu sei qui con me,_

 _con me, con me, con me._

 _Time to say goodbye._

 _Paesi che non ho mai_

 _veduto e vissuto con te,_

 _adesso si li vivrò._

 _Con te partirò_

 _su navi per mari_

 _che, io lo so,_

 _no, no, non esistono più,_

 _con te io li rivivrò._

 _Con te partirò_

 _su navi per mari_

 _che, io lo so,_

 _no, no, non esistono più,_

 _con te io li rivivrò._

 _Con te partirò._

 _Io con te._

It was a song I'd never heard before, the language foreign with a bit of English she'd thrown in I'd suspected to betray its title. As she finished Elizabeth was subdued, demure and embarrassed for the ensuing silence. The band finished its impromptu accompaniment and set their instruments down. I stood looking at her with the rest, awestruck.

"Why…that was…lovely, Elizabeth." Morgan's wife finally said, and the crowd about beginning to clap then fervently. "And your Italian...every word with such...perfect pronunciation."

"Thank you, Misses Morgan." She said, obviously feeling the dozens of eyes upon her. "I take that as a high compliment coming from you."

Looking on with the rest of them, Fanny Morgan continued. "The only thing is, wherever did you learn _that_? I don't believe I have ever heard such a song sung before, even in Rome. And were it, it should be _very_ popular."

"I...I composed it myself." Elizabeth answered, eyes searching the crowd in vain. "When I was younger it just sort of came to me. I guess I had a lot of time on my hands."

 **( watch?v=XLCPYbdZjvw)**


	12. Parlour Tricks

**12\. Parlour Tricks**

"Time on your hands?" Frances Morgan replied from her husband's side.

To our side the band had resumed its chamber music and amongst the gathering servants were making the rounds, ensuring anyone with a thirst was topped off. She and the elder Morgan hung upon my answer, while at her side her son, his wife and the Astors' eyes joined their curiosity. Clearly I could tell whatever plan Nikola had concocted had gained purchase at the ransom of my notoriety. "I would think from that virtuoso performance this evening you'd be hounded shore to shore by the greatest showmen of this land!"

"Indeed it should be so, Mrs. Morgan..." Laslowe answered, garnering their attention. As he did spoke he was smiling at me, not with his unturned lips so much as his _eyes_. "However, Miss Comstock hails from...another region of America. One not so familiar to eastern sensibilities. _Columbia_ , I do believe?"

At his words I was froze eyes wide, but remembered what Booker had told me of the man...his knowledge tears and Columbia. Of _me_. Neither wishing to make trouble nor invite further interrogation, I played along though with a stammer. "Y...yes. Out...out west." In vain I glanced across the crowd for the only person who could have possibly helped me.

"Needless to say there is not the degree of exposure one might have in New York City. Given what appears to be your extended stay here in the city..." He continued with an eyes-beneath-his-brow glance toward Tesla. "We might rectify that."

"Yes." Nikola answered uneasily before clapping his hands together with a broad smile. In that moment I saw an oddness between the pair and knew they knew one another.

"Simply the capstone on an evening of miracles." Astor added, holding his beaming wife Madeline's hand. "You know, Tesla, this device...I can attest to Ismay's words...it would have had great utility on our most recent crossing of the Atlantic. Why, for a time I was certain we were going to take a swim."

"You cannot think it mere coincidence I chose to reveal this secret of all times _this_ evening?" About him the gathered crème of New York society chuckled. "No, I must admit I do strive for a bit of showmanship every now and then."

"Might we ask when you expect the first scale demonstrations to occur? Such an event would be bound to other attract investors." Morgan's son asked. By the way he spoke I heard a hint of reservation in his voice, perhaps not as enamored of the man as his father. It was odd how they looked, both men with mustaches peppered gray, the same as their hair. For a man in his seventies, the elder Morgan looked unreasonably hale.

Tesla's smile remained fixed. "Soon, Ladies and Gentlemen, soon. Even now at Wardenclyffe we are affecting the final adjustments to the locus and power behind the lifting engine, a concept, I might say, which is intimately related to the researches and practical applications of high voltage transmitted power such as you have all seen at the laboratory."

"And when might we hear more about those transmissions overseas?" The patriarch asked. "Considering the power demonstration, it seems you have solved your problems."

"I shall have my final report to you by the end of the week, but I can tell you this." He said with a devilish flourish. "You shall be eminently pleased, Mr. Morgan. Your and Mr. Astor's largesse has not been in vain!"

As Tesla continued to chat with the men, both Frances and Astor's young wife approached me. "Columbia, Missouri or South Carolina?" The younger woman asked. Her hair was brown and pinned up, pretty but more out of youth than striking features. She was perhaps half the years of her husband if not less, and recognizing the difference caused me pause.

"Missouri." I answered as others gathered round, the total of thirty some guests seeming more like the crowds at Booker's Penn Central Station as they gathered round. I proffered a smile, hoping none of them divined that I'd no idea where or what a 'Missouri' was. "But it...has been some time since I've been there."

"Dear, do you think she might know the Worthingtons?" Madeline asked, a dimple in her chin prominent as she caught Astor's forearm in hand.

"Not unless the young lady is the daughter of bankers. Miss Comstock, I do not believe I know that name amongst the more prominent families of that city, though I must confess I have found the time but once to visit the place. Might I inquire as to _your_ family? Oh..." He said, glancing to his wife's grasp. But we haven't formally met, have we? John Jacob Astor the Fourth, and this is my wife, Madeline. Formerly Madeline Talmage Force, if you know the Forces."

"I am afraid I do not." I answered, managing an ephemeral smile. "I am a neophyte in this great city, and my guide, Mr. DeWitt..." Again I searched the gaps between the people gathered around. "I seem to have misplaced him."

Mr. Astor was quite tall, with a similar dimple in his chin beneath a broad and straight mustache. Though his hair was ever so slightly receding, he had it parted in the middle and slicked to the sides, giving his high cheek bones and thoughtful eyes the most gentlemanly countenance. "Colonel." I heard a man in the crowd say, and Astor turned. Mr. J. Bruce Ismay, President of the White Star Line, had stepped forward. Not far away I saw Katherine's approving glance as she and her husband spoke to Henry Saltonstall. Silently I prayed they did not come again our way.

"You wished to have a word with me, good Sir?" Ismay said. "I am assuming this has to do with the recent unpleasantness onboard Titanic I mentioned earlier?"

"Indeed it does. Before business, Bruce, have you been introduced to our evening's songbird, Miss Comstock?"

I'd not had such attention, and couldn't decide whether I was overwhelmed or exhilarated. From the forefront of the crowd Katherine glanced from Saltonstall to her husband, her study of my predicament soothing my heightened nerves. As I shook my head at the woman, from the corner of my eye I saw Morgan pull Laslowe aside. Not being a lip reader, I could not tell precisely what the words were between them, but they came with a glance toward Nikola and question related to the man's 'science.' As the men spoke a servant in a white jacket appeared, an ornate black bottle in white gloved hands. Upon Morgan's approval the three retired from the ballroom.

"No, I do not believe I have. Bruce Ismay of International Mercantile Marine, Miss Comstock. I must say that was the most splendid song...quite haunting, I must say, though, considering my Italian is suspect, the meaning of its lyrics elude me."

"I did not write them..." I answered, remembering how they'd come to me in dreams. Alone in my gilded cage, I'd learned Italian to decipher their meaning. Looking about the room past puzzled Katherine and Robert and their chattering company a final time, I realized I'd always known their meaning. "But I think they tell of a girl whose heart has been broken, for she's lost the love of her life...and how she wishes..." Realizing Mr. Ismay, the Astors, Frances Morgan and son were hanging on my words, I tore my eyes from the door and returned to their attentions with clasped hands. I felt a tear run my cheek. " _Intends_ to follow."

"Intends to _follow_? Well, it is a romantic notion and fitting for such a lovely young lady. Rather like Romeo and Juliet. Since I hear, surprisingly, that singing is not your vocation, how is it that you come in to Mr. Tesla's employee? I must confess that I've heard of ladies working in the offices from time to time, but in the laboratory? Remarkable." Ismay took a drink as a servant approached in white coat, hand flat beneath a tray of champagne. "You must be a regular Ada Lovelace, or a...a Marie Curie."

"Perhaps I possess some gifts..." I answered, drying my cheek with the back of my glove and having no idea of whom he spoke. I went with the idea it was a compliment. "God given. From a young age I've...grasped numbers and matters scientific. By happenstance, Mr. Tesla and I were introduced only but a week ago. It has been quite the match." The sight of the refreshment rippling in Ismay's glass...the servant's receding tray of libations suddenly served to remind me of nature's growing urgency.

"And you are working on the present developments?" Ismay smiled before taking a drink. Still everyone was hanging upon my words.

"Yes, I am indeed." I smiled anxiously at the ring of people about me and looked to Katharine, whose emerald quizzically caught mine. "I...I do regret being impolite, but would you please excuse me for a moment? I...I believe I have to...to powder my nose."

Madeline covered her mouth and Frances Morgan smiled demurely, while the men appeared gracious. "Of course." Mr. Ismay answered, exchanging a glance with Tesla, the junior Morgan and Astor. "I do hope I should get to learn more from you upon your return, my Dear."

"I am certain you shall." Holding my breath, I turned and slipped away. Saltonstall had thankfully become engaged in another conversation nearby, leaving Katharine and Robert to me. "And now she comes back to earth, to tarry amongst the normal, everyday folk." Katharine smirked, taking my gloved hands gently into hers.

"Yes, who would have guessed that we had an angel in our midst?" Mr. Underwood continued, and for a moment I wondered what it might have been like had this decent man been my father. "So lovely!"

"Oh, thank you." I answered, more than a bit of angst in my step as I addressed the pair. "I do appreciate the praise. Have you seen Mr. DeWitt?"

Robert Underwood Johnson's brow fell ever so slightly, turning to his wife's similarly perplexed look. "No, not since before your song. Is there a _problem_?"

Feeling warmer, I glanced to Katharine. "Nothing that a short trip to the water closet won't fix. Katharine, could you...?"

Seeing my eagerness, she let one hand drop but kept my other in hers. "Of course. If you'll excuse me, Robert, we'll be back in a moment. Right this way, young Miss."

#

"Goodness...that was so embarrassing." I said as we left the ballroom, making a beeline back across the black and white tiled floor of the foyer to a salon. To either side upon its walls paintings hung, landscapes and pastoral scenes that did little to still my urge. Through the salon's far doors I heard a flush and the trickle of water. "I thought I was going to die."

Katharine smiled as we entered. I'd seen a ladies powder room a handful of times since Columbia, and this wasn't _that_. Mirrors adorned its red papered walls, hangings above golden sinks while fans turned quietly above. Spotted between the mirrors, electric lamps shielded by translucent white glass illuminated the room. For a moment I was taken aback in how much it resembled Comstock House.

"Elizabeth, are you quite all right?" She asked, touching my forearm as a lady emerged from one of the small but ornate rooms at its back. She grinned at me and nodded as she began to wash her hands. I smiled and nodded back.

"Yes." I answered, turning from her. "I'll...I'll just be a moment."

The toilets were no less opulent than the décor of the entire place, gilded and spotless. As the water swirled away I emerged, relieved, washing my hands and adjusting my hair in one of the gold framed looking glasses above the sink. Katharine was waiting with the gloves. I noticed she'd taken the time to do a little upkeep of her own fiery blonde tresses.

"I would like to know where you learned that song." She said as we departed the chamber, heading out into the passage. From the corner of my eye I saw something...felt somethings like a stinging minutely in my severed finger, faint like the passage of electricity. My eyes turned toward the stairs Booker had gone up earlier...up to Morgan's study.

"What...what do you think was Mr. Laslowe's business with Mr. Morgan?" I asked, considering the stairs as I shook my gloved digit.

"I...believe that is none of our business." She answered, uncertain as to my meaning or intentions. "Are you all right?"

With a look over my shoulder, I headed up. "Elizabeth!" Katharine whispered, her admonition loud enough to be heard only by me. Taking the blue hem of my dress in hand I hastened upward, afraid to lose what I'd felt. "Where are you going?!"

"Oh, Katharine!" I said in a whisper, rounding a great winding marble stair and paintings to the upper landing. "There's a _tear_!"

"A what!?" She answered, hand upon rail and clamoring to keep up.

"A _Tear_!"

Red carpet lay soft beneath our feet on the second floor, making our crossing nearly silent. I'd feared we might run into one of Morgan's men, but with the house engaged in throwing what Katherine had on the trip over referred to as a 'blowout,' it was, in fact, deserted. Down a hallway we passed, slowing to hide behind a procession of statues that lined the walls, approaching double oak doors at the hallway's end. Down its length, tapestries and red drapes caught nearly all of the sound.

Even as we approached Katharine tried to bar me. "What are you talking about, a _'tear'_!? Elizabeth..." She whispered in great consternation. "What are we doing here!?"

"Getting to the bottom of this!" I said, biting my lower lip. Before me those ornately crafted, dark wooden doors gleamed in the hallway light. I reached down to place my hand upon one and knelt to my knees, barely able to hear unintelligible words being exchanged. Hesitating as my vision fixated upon the golden handles, I lent a gloved appendage to one...only to find it locked.

"Elizabeth!" Katharine whispered. Undeterred, from my hair I extracted a pin, a long one that would do the trick. Against it I brought out another. By the look upon her face Katharine seemed about to have a heart attack. With single minded attention I slipped them into the keyhole and met the lock. Ornate the door might have been, but not its fastness. I felt it give seconds later. "Goodness, you're a burglar!"

With a smirk I pressed the finger tab and cracked the door.

Inside the high-ceilinged chamber glowed red, illuminated by the light of a singular crackling log set ablaze in the fireplace...enough to add ambiance, but not much heat. Opposite us and the door a red velvet couch was empty, Morgan and Laslowe sitting backs to us in the two matching chairs, surrounded by walls of caged books. Everywhere were paintings and statues. A filigree of smoke rose from beyond Morgan's chair.

"And I trust that these matters are known to no one?" I heard Morgan ask. Between the chairs over a low hexagonal table he reached out an empty glass, a square tumbler drained of...something.

"To no one. It would be completely impossible." Laslowe answered.

"Even to Tesla?"

"Tesla...is a different matter. But I can assure you from our daily business he has no suspicion of the _potential_ of his new invention. He merely sees it as a device to lift an airship. Genius as he is, the man has no guile...he disregards or misses entirely its finer aspects for the garnering of true power."

"Do you think it's more palatable _now_?" Morgan asked the profile of his face turning to glance at the black bottle ensconced in shaved ice between them. As he did so I felt Katharine fall into a crouch behind me, the woman's green eyes meeting mine. Protest she might, but the thrill of our spying seemed now as much of an excitement to her as me. Laslowe raised that glass bottle from its silver sconce...a black bottle with intricate relief glinting upon a wet, and frosted side.

"Perhaps not so much as one might like, but enough to take the edge off of it. Were it chilled more, the fire might relent."

"For something so precious, it does not have a fetching taste...such an after bite. I could swear every time I imbibe this...I feel it burning the life out of me."

"Would you forswear it, Pierpont?" Laslowe asked dryly. The question hung in the air, framed only by the crackling of the dwindling log. "Life is a hard thing to surrender, is it not?"

"Yes." Morgan said somberly, and in his words I heard both regret and resignation. "That is why I am afraid of it." After a pause, he continued. "I...have never asked you, Robert, where...where is this made?"

Unstopping the bottle's ornate top, one that looked like a conquistador hovering over of all things a bubbling fountain, Laslowe wafted away the eerie vapor that emerged with the palm of his hand before pouring it into the man's tumbler where it hovered over the table. Again my finger throbbed with electricity. "A place not terribly far away but so _very_ hard to get to." After dispensing Morgan's spirits, he poured himself a glass. "Though from our young starlet tonight, you might have heard of it."

"Have I?" Morgan said as he closed his eyes and took a drink.

"Indeed." Laslowe finished before following. "A place called _Columbia_."


	13. Murder Most Fowl

**13\. Murder Most Fowl**

I slipped out as the commotion rose, tarrying amid the smoke shrouded arches of Morgan's foyer to listen for a last moment. A glance over my shoulder found the tycoon's servants stiff against the walls of the corridor, the guests in the ballroom coalescing about Elizabeth. For a moment amid all those new devotees, I saw searching blue eyes.

It was late and outside the streets dark, the midnight desolation of the sidewalks lit only by the sparse lights overhead or passing of the occasional vehicle. For the first time in weeks I was alone. Perhaps that was why I found the emptiness so comforting. I'd always been alone. Still, Midtown was no stranger to me. Southward I strolled, noticing in my journey how the buildings had grown from the lots and barns twenty years before into solid brick canyon. Jacket draped over shoulder, I looked at the lights and figures moving within those well-kept brownstones. In a window three stories up, I saw a man and his wife in white night clothes putting their blonde daughter to bed, the little girl with a matching bow in her hair laughing...mother looking on with quiet satisfaction. The man might not have presided over a city, but at least he did his castle. And something more important than a castle.

I walked on, not realizing I'd turned east until I glanced up to find the shadows of the El above. Like a grazing cow at the end of the day I'd found my way back to the trail, and the watering hole wasn't that far away. I knew where I was going.

Half an hour later I stopped to look down Seventh. Men were gathered outside the place, laughing and stumbling in the street, some arguing. A wall of cars graced its curb, one Model V idling in the dark, headlamps illuminating the nighttime pests as they fluttered to and fro in the street. Against the jazz from the establishment's piano I heard warm noise, punctuated by the crasser fools outside.

I passed through McSorley's twin green doors like old times, finding the crowd noisy and vibrant. Despite the late hour all its tables were taken, and a full-on throng mobbed the bar. Drawing a look or two I edged up to the back of the garrulous knot, pushing my way through to Ernie. He was serving up mugs to a pair of suited gentlemen when his eyes caught mine, and in that instant I saw upon his surprised countenance regret. Perhaps he'd registered my upscale attire. Anticipating a heady evening, I slapped two quarters on the counter. Uneasily he served up a cold mug and with it I slaked my thirst from the walk. With swipe of the bar and clatter behind him those bits went in the till.

"Booker...it's good to see you. I'd begun to worry." With perspiration beaded forehead he examined my hat in hand before rubbing the side of his rosy nose. "I...I want to apologize for..."

"Don't." I said, savoring the lager. The ale was like silk in my mouth, and cool. I finished my draw and sighed, seeing in the mirror behind Finn's brown pate an altogether dapper looking gentlemen, clean shaven, hair neat...bow tie black though half undone about his neck. "I...didn't come for anything other than the draught."

Ernie glanced about, nervous. "Well, right. Just want you to know, though...Ciro been here two days ago. Asking around about you and them longshoremen the cops found dead out in back a couple of weeks ago. Didn't see Nick but..."

"I'm sure he's about." I answered, gently elbowing a far too drunken bar mate out of my claim at the rail.

"Say..." Ernie said, looking me over while he fended off an unintelligibly drunken request from the man next to me. "You look good...better than I think I've ever seen you. But your face don't look right...this girl, is it?" I nodded, to which Finn frowned and served up the man, barely paying attention as he filled a mug and slid it to him from the tap. "Look, if you can front half the dough, I might be able to spot you the other half for this ship of yours...what's the name of it?"

I shook my head, glad for lost possibilities. "There's no ship, Ernie. No need for one. It's over."

"Between you?" As he spoke, I took a draw of ale, eyes closed. "But why? The money?"

"She's too good for me. Even now she's snooting it up with New York society."

"New York society?" His eyes cast up and down my outfit, evincing a grin. "Judgin' by the way you look, Booker DeWitt, you're well on your way there too."

I didn't reciprocate. "Looks can be deceiving."

"Well, did she just leave you high and dry then?"

"No, I left her."

"You...you left her?" He said in astonishment.

"That's right."

"But _why_?"

"Because I need to get out of her way." I finished the ale and set the mug on the counter.

"Looking for another?" Ernie followed, obviously uncertain of what to do with me. "It might do you good."

I looked back to the floor of the place...remembered the times over the years I'd ended up mopping it with my face. Once more I found myself in the mirror. "No. Just stopping by for old time's sake." I hefted again my jacket over shoulder and turned to walk back out, taking hat in hand. "Thanks for the heads up about the Ciro. I'll be on the lookout. You can keep the change."

#

Lower Manhattan was as deserted as Midtown as I strolled on. It was over a mile to my old haunt. In no hurry, half an hour later I came to a halt outside 108 Bowery, lingering against the riveted stanchions of the railroad looming above. With Finn's ale soothing my invisible wounds I sighed, wishing I'd accepted his offer of more drink and money. Had I, by now I'd have been numb to it all, and the cash would have bought passage for one of us, at least. Gotten an ocean between us.

Far enough to prevent me from destroying her.

Having already loitered too long and ready to sleep, I entered the building from the street, stepping about the not-so-itinerant drunk in the lower hall. With his wheezing hulk behind me I mounted the stairs, approaching my old office on creaking floorboards, the last of which I lifted to expose a brass key. For a moment I hesitated, for in the light from the hallway I could see the glass pane the door's center had been scraped clean of my name. Setting the brass into the hole beneath the handle, I turned it and the lock gave way.

It opened with a clatter and as I entered, I knew Moira Neary hadn't been bluffing. I'd been evicted. Yet for all the changes to the door, the interior was as Elizabeth and I had left it...bed made, the door to the nursery closed. My table was clean, the windows beyond it closed with curtains drawn. I left the lights off and closed the door behind me, walking to the bed where I surrendered the jacket and ridiculous top hat.

With the heat of the day still lingering in the room I opened the window to distant street noises, feeling the draft waft across my damp face. Head in hands I sat upon the sheets and mattress, helpless but to remember her in my arms, us here and alone, brushing her hair as she slept. How she'd clung to me. How even though our apartment had been a hovel it had been ours. I remembered her crying out at Anna's arrival.

 _Elizabeth's_ arrival.

She'd deserved so much more than what she'd received. She'd deserved her little girl. She'd deserved so much more than me.

And so did Elizabeth.

Kansas wouldn't be a good place to go, not with my brothers still there. And sure as hell not Missouri, Columbia or otherwise. In Europe a war was brewing. Perhaps _they'd_ need men. I could always go back to McSorley's tomorrow. Finn would be good for it. Outside I heard an automobile pull up and shut down...the voices of men whispered against the slam of car doors. Presently I heard the entrance open below, the drunk bellowing something unintelligible. The strike of heels came upon the wooden floorboards outside my door. With shadows in the glass, my hand went instinctively for my shoulder holster and the Broadsider...only to find it missing.

"No, I'm telling you, this is where he told Nick we'd find the stash, and boss man wants 'em back at the Stable before we head out tonight." A voice said, becoming louder as the door opened. In haste I grabbed jacket and hat, diving for the nursery and escape. Instead of the disassembled cradle and Elizabeth's disused bed, as I closed the door I was surprised to find the room's papered walls stacked with carry cases of strange red bottles, each crowned by the naked torso of a red devil woman, blowing a fiery kiss.

"And he gave the location to Nick just like that? Didn't even ask to for the money?"

"Oh, Nick paid him. In cash. Said the product spoke for itself."

"You believe him, Mose?"

"Ain't lied to Nick yet. Besides, Ricky, I don't need to believe nothin'…I seen 'em in action too. Needs to tell him to lock his damned doors, though. Say...you hear something?"

I froze, hand stilling the shivering crates. Beyond the open window a car puttered by, followed by silence. Somewhere in the darkness a screech of steel upon steel echoed through the night, a distant clattering came from the El. "Maybe da train goin' by." The thinner voice said.

"Dey ain't no train, Ricky." Through the nursery door I heard the floorboards take weight, creaking beneath two men's load

A revolver cocked. "You reckon any of Lupo's boys been up here?"

"No, Ricky...only me an Nick knows about dis new drop."

I heard a click and beneath the nursery door light appeared, certainly from the lone bulb that hung above the table. Realizing what was about to happen, I slipped the window open and clambered out upon the fire escape, turning to bring the framed glass down before ducking off to its side. In the process my top hat tumbled from my hand to the grating, down the black rungs of the fire escape ladder and to the pavement below. As I cursed beneath my breath light entered the nursery, followed by the entry of shadowy figures. "Looks like they all here."

Silence followed, and I feared the man sensed something was not right. "All right, let's start takin' it down."

Darkened Bowery stretched below. Hidden in the moon shadows of the El sat a Model T flatbed truck. One by one the men carried the tall-bottled cases from the nursery down, rousing again and again the man in the hallway as they hauled their contraband onto the back of the vehicle. Ten trips they made, cleaning the place out, each time the bum crying out louder until finally he rose, coming after them in a stumbling, drunken stupor. Their task apparently complete, the men tarried beside the truck's open doors, the taller running fingers through his greasy hair while the angered vagrant approached. "What do you reckon' these ones do?"

"No idea." The stouter man, 'Mose' apparently, eyed the stumbling drunkard. With a wicked smile he reached into the driver's side door and took a black bottle in hand, a bottle with what appeared to be a bird's black head upon it. Undoing the stopper, he smiled at his friend and took a heavy swig. In short order he wretched, then heaved violently. Without pause he threw up his hand, fingers raised in an "L" and I could swear they were black as the night around us…like claws. From the rails of the El and eaves of the surrounding buildings I heard a chattering, then a shudder as a hideous screeching commenced, distant at first but growing louder. Where before Bowery had been nearly silent the cawing of dozens of black birds broke the night, coalescing from the shadows to descend upon the man's hapless figure in a harrowing spiral. Beset by the birds, the man's shrieks broke the night, rattling the half open windows about the street. Mose held his gaze upon the hapless guy as if _commanding_ the birds...crows, all circling his victim, alighting upon the man to tear flesh from his body. Snapping and poking, they tore out his eyes. Beneath their savage onslaught the man screamed one last time before crumpling to the brick.

"But that's what _that_ one does." Mose said diabolically, savoring the mutilation in his eyes.

"Who...who...wants these?" The other man asked.

" _Foreigners_. Nick said…Germans, I think." At his words my brow furrowed. "Said he'd fill us in tonight." Appraising his murderous hand like a finely crafted weapon, the birdman spied my head cover upon the ground and set the black bottle back into the seat of the truck. About Bowery apartment lights had illuminated in the aftermath of the grisly slaughter, here and there back-lit figures in windows looking down upon the street. The killer retrieved the top hat from the ground and turned it about, tossing it over his shoulder as his attention flagged. It spiraled into the bum's bloody form and the handful of remaining crows took flight. "And Nick. Cops stop us from carrying guns, we come up with something even worse. Lots more where these came from too, and soon"

"I want to try one." The tall one said, only to be barred by Mose's arm as he pulled a different looking flask from one of the wooden boxes.

"No, I don't think so, Ricky..." Mose responded. "At least not yet."

"Why?" His accomplice said as they headed to the front of the truck. Opening the vehicle's door, the birdman chuckled. "Because Niko's said so…at least for now. Come on."

Still in shock from what I'd seen and gob smacked by the mention of the Germans, I took a moment to realize they were pulling away. Hastily I dropped down the fire escape, riding the extending ladder as it cascaded with an iron clank to the brick below. In a mad dash I gave chase, losing the jacket to the bricks behind me. With a lunging grasp I managed to make the truck's bed as it gained speed north along Bowery.

#

It was dark as we sped north, following in the shadow of the El. As the miles passed the buildings became less familiar. Mostly I'd haunted the south side of Manhattan, and though I'd been Uptown a few times those trips didn't give me much comfort. Fifteen minutes, give or take, Mose turned off Third Avenue, and I realized we'd ended up in Harlem.

Harlem…named a couple hundred years ago after a town back in the Netherlands. Before they'd migrated west, my great grandparents had supposedly lived here. Taken over by immigrants from southern Europe in the latter decades of the 19th Century, it wasn't in the family anymore. In fact, it had gotten a new moniker… _Italian_ Harlem. It was where Nick and Ciro called home, along with Lupo the Wolf, their don and head of the powerful Morello crime family. I'd worked hard not to cross them during my years in New York and got the impression that by butting into their business I might just be signing my death warrant.

I saw us pass Second Avenue, marked by a wooden post at the juncture of dark streets. The brakes came on and we slowed, pulling in front of a livery just east of that intersection. As we stopped, I craned head over shoulder seeing a man rise from his seat atop a barrel beside the doors, turning to open the stable's entrance. Before he could see me I rolled off the side, crouching behind the cover of a handful of nearby carts along the street.

Upon a few of the buildings I'd seen those convenient-for-breaking-in fire escapes, but most here had only windows with the occasional iron railing about an upper balcony. Here and there hung fabric awnings and vacant clotheslines, obstacles waiting to trip me up in the climb. Into the alley beside the stable I slipped, chasing a cat away with screech. I cringed.

Outside the doors shut.

With the feline stirring up a racket I was in no hurry to continue, hovering in the shadows with nary a breath. Finally, boredom got the better of me. With no gunmen pouring out to end me, I discovered the light from a window just above eye height. Finding a crate, I positioned it beneath the sill and stepped up. Inside the barn I saw the truck's lights go off and Mose get out alongside his friend. Before them on the straw strewn dirt stood five others…all dressed in suspenders, pants and button-down shirts. With a toss his head Mose gestured to the wall and the men set about unloading the cases, the vixen-topped bottles joining scores of others topped with that eerily peering figure of the black raven I'd seen on Mose's personal favorite. "We'll need twenty rifles and ten cases of ammo. Leave twelve cases of the _Kiss_ on the truck." He said to one of his lackeys, a small, wiry man with a face like a ferret. "Before we go, I need to go talk to Nick."

Having placed the red bottles alongside the other ones, the men took to loading the longer crates, moving them one by one to place them in the bed of the truck. "Any of youse tried this one?" Ricky asked, taking one of the flame breathing women in hand. The men glanced to one another, trepidation upon their mugs.

"Better not have, if you know what's good for you. Besides, trainin' day is comin' soon, boys." The killer answered, looking lovingly at one of the red bottles as he removed it from his mate's hands. "But tonight is just beginning and business ain't over. Once we have the money, Nick will tell us what he wants to do."

"So, no more guns?" The big one said as he gathered one of the longer cases in hand. Mose turned a smirk his way.

"Sullivan Act...let them coppers keep 'em, Luigi. With these, we won't need them guns."

In his haste to load the truck the big one lost his grip on a long crate. With a thud one end felt and it split upon the ground. There amid the straw what I could clearly see two pristine Columbian Triple R's. "Beautiful, Tony. Why don't you bust a few more cases open?"

"Sorry, Mose." The big guy said. Chagrined, the lummox turned and placed one of the guns back into its straw laden crate. Looking disappointed, Mose walked over to other and lifted it from the ground, placing its length neatly back in the straw alongside the other before laying the cover atop. "Let's go see Nick." One by one his men joined him, and they were off.

Outside the barrel sitter watched, eyes following Mose and his goons as they headed east. With the men gone, he turned and closed the doors.

A lone light bulb hung from the rafters overhead. Having no idea of how much time I had before they returned, I lifted the window open and climbed in, dropping to the straw covered dirt and hastening to the crates. Opening the one that had been broken, I found a Triple R from the back of the truck, remembering its lines well from the city in the sky. How was this possible? If not exactly gone, Columbia was inaccessible, and with Elizabeth incapable of making tears destined to remain that way. Yet Tesla had made them.

And Laslowe…

Searching the crates, I found one stenciled " _Fink Industries_ " and _"AMMUNITION_." Prying it open, I found stacks of Triple R magazines. Seating one in the weapon, I squirreled another pair in pockets before closing the container back up. Starting for the window, my steps suddenly slowed, eyes turning inexorably toward the back of the truck and the strange bottles with crimson women atop them. Thinking an absent one would be missed, I headed instead for the wall and stacked reserves of them there…vicious birds and hot broads. With a mind to ask Robert about them later, I purloined one of each from a lower box before making my escape the way I'd come.

Outside in the alley I waited, secure in my new firepower and eager to get to the bottom of whatever I'd stumbled upon. It wasn't long before the doors opened again and Mose and his men appeared, accompanied by Niko Terranova in pants and his night shirt. "Just remember, Mr. Scarlotti, the money _before_ the exchange this time." He said, handing Mose an oblong black box. "These people have the potential to make us very rich, but we must be assured first."

"How much time do we have?"

"Our boat should be arriving at our Port Morris holding within the hour for the trip. Take only a few men and keep a low profile. We do not wish to scare off a good customer or alert Gaetano's traitors..." Terranova said. "But make sure you get every cent or there is no deal."

#

Together with Ricky and the Lummox, Mose…rather _Mr. Scarlotti…_ had pulled out into the street, preparing to head east. With them Terranova exchanged a few last words as the truck idled. With Nick and his men in the way, my transport was suddenly in doubt. Southward I hastened, picking up speed as I dodged barrels and crates in the alley, hoping Nick wouldn't shut up. Turning east I stashed the bottles under a brick stoop and sprinted to First Avenue before racing back north. Out of breath and with the heavy repeater in hand I bent over, wheezing in the shadows overlooking the intersection. Down 107th I could see Nick still talking, pointing to the back of the truck. The trucks headlamps came on and Terranova stepped back. Slowly the truck accelerated, coming in my direction. I stayed behind the northeast corner of the tenement as they passed, loping in the shadows just behind the passenger side as the vehicle came to a stop. As its driver looked for oncoming traffic, I took the opportunity to join the crates in the back.

The truck turned left and soon left the seedy tenements of East Harlem behind for the more reputable establishments of First Avenue. In the truck bed between the stacks of crates I lay upon my back, weapon cradled in hand, watching overhead as the streetlights flew by back-dropped by stars. Eventually the truck mounted an incline and to the sides I could see the Harlem River, the metal trusses of the Willis Avenue bridge passing overhead.

Off the north side of the bridge we turned, heading east through the multistory brick rises of darkened Mott Haven and into dingier Port Morris…both neighborhoods of the Bronx. Beneath us the smooth bricks of Manhattan gave way to broken cobblestone then dirt, complete with ruts and potholes. The scent of fish and water rot touched my nose, followed by the singsong wail of a passing steamer's horn. Perhaps thirty minutes after we'd set out the men pulled up to the faded wooden door of a dilapidated warehouse.

Sensing my time at hand, I rolled off the back of the truck into a cluster of barrels to the side of the brick ramp. The lanky man in the right seat opened his door and hopped out, followed by his big friend, both walking up to the nondescript door panel before producing a key and raising it. With the door open, Mose rolled through. Before I could follow the big guy closed the portal behind him.

Realizing I'd been locked out again, a curse escaped my lips. In haste I ventured into the wavering grass growing wild beside the entrance. Figuring there was always another way in, I slipped down the wooden side of the dock and between buildings, navigating unsteadily the brick and moss-covered rip rap until I came to the water. Down the dark and rectangular canyon between the wharves I could see the breadth of the Brooklyn-lit East River now…the same waters Elizabeth and I had made our supposed 'escape' upon a week before. It also struck me that here just off shore, the ferry _General Slocum_ had caught fire and foundered nearly a decade before with the loss of a thousand lives. Before I could further ruminate upon that matter, out on the current I saw a seventy-foot motor launch approaching against the distant waterfront, running lights out as it coursed westward from dimly seen Hunts Point. Had I not been looking I'd have never heard it. With its motor powered down, it was hard to discern against the crickets and late-night wash.

Lacking a better plan, I took to the side of the building and pressed deeper into the water, slipping between the pilings to come beneath the dock. The water was shallow though the mud did no favors to my shoes. The tuxedo pants, separated long hours ago from their matching jacket and hat, were a total loss…Katharine Johnson would be disappointed. With effort I made my way forward perhaps fifty feet north in a crouch, coming beneath Nick's men as the cruiser came along side. Upon its deck three men held their hands against the truck's blinding headlamps, all clad in hats and coats against the cool coming off the water. About my thighs their idled craft's wake rolled. Toward the nearby island I could see a fog beginning to rise in the moonlight. The ancient mud wanted to suck me down.

"Who is it there?" Mose asked, he and his men arrayed about the idling truck and its cargo.

"Giuseppe Masseria." The man on the boat replied. "Nick told me and my guys we're supposed to take you east."

"Guiseppe, eh? Well, Nick says hello right back at you. You got the map?"

At the boatman's side the driver held up a folded back upon itself sheath of paper. "We do, but if you wanna make before sunrise, we need to get going."

Upon the dock Mose looked Guiseppe and his men over, appraising them for some time before nodding to his own. "All right, load 'em up.

Sensing again that I was about to get left behind, I waded further into the water until I came alongside the vessel, slipped the weapon over the stern gunnel and dove deep, crossing beneath the barnacle encrusted stern. After a moment I came up on the other side, grasping for a hold on the boat until I found a bit above. Just as I was about to pull myself up and over the side, one of the Massaria's men came aft to the motors. I shrunk low in the water, shying away from the man as he brought the engines to life. Forward he went again, and desperate to avoid the now churning propellers I pulled myself up and in, hiding cold and wet amongst the crates stacked behind the cabin.

I waited there as the half dozen loaded the boat up front, not daring to poke my head up until we were underway. By the turn of the warehouse to our left I knew we were heading northeast whence they'd come. Over the dark waters the craft picked up speed until we were clipping through the waves. Upon the illuminated front of the vessel the three mobsters were chatting, one of them inspecting a weapon from one of the crates while the Mose examined the libations. At one point the largest of them came around to the back of the craft, again working around the motors before heading after a moment bow ward again. I knew then I could have put him over the side, but there were five more including Nick's boys. Neither had I any idea of what was going on…only that Germans were involved.

Germans.

Seeking cover and a break against the growing breeze, I slinked over to the coil of rope. Searching its mound, I found the secreted Repeater and took it in hand before pulling the dry lengths about my person. Prepared for a long, cold trip, I sat back with the repeater aimed at the Morellos, putting my arms about myself, hoping not to die of exposure as we raced outward past North Brother Island and onto Throggs Neck. Soon we'd be passing into Long Island Sound.

As we passed that rocky promontory to our left, I craned my head a last time to take in the lights of the city. New York was beautiful at night, I thought. Kind of like Paris.

I wondered if I'd ever see her again.

#

"If I'd not seen it with my very own eyes, I'd have been certain it was some trick!" Katherine Johnson said as Oscar pulled alongside the curb of a mostly darkened 327 Lexington. Aside from the porch light, only the light in the foyer was on. "Not that Nikola would do such a thing, but he has been known to exaggerate. To think, Nikola unlocking the power of the birds!"

"Hardly the birds. The most fundamental force of nature itself. I believe I am still unsettled." Robert answered, brow troubled beneath top hat at the mystery we'd seen. A mystery to them, perhaps, but to me flying ships and cities were mysteries not at all. Booker, however, _was_.

"Are you absolutely _certain_ you didn't see him?" I asked anew, unable to still the growing panic in my heart. "I mean, he just _had_ to go somewhere!?" As Katharine stepped from the Johnson's Pathfinder her husband guided her with his arm, while on the street side against the light late-night traffic Oscar shepherded my descent onto the brickwork. Lexington street was dark to the north, punctuated by the glow of the occasional car's headlights and dim electric overheads. Looking down its receding length, I felt my stomach in knots and wrung my gloved hands. Katharine and I shared a knowing look.

"My Dear Elizabeth..." The gray-haired Johnson answered, voice certain in the way a father might humor a frightened child. "Mr. DeWitt has seemed a devoted guardian, and surely he shall return."

Neither of us had told her husband what we'd seen in Morgan's study. With a forced smile Katharine entered as he parted the twin doors of their porch, golden light spilling from inside across her bare shoulders and across the stoop. "Do come in." I knew she could feel my angst, for in the tiny aspects of her voice I heard that kindred worry. As we entered Nora was waiting, weary, attending to Robert Johnson's hat and cane.

"I trust the evening was enchanting? Oh, to dine with the creme of New York!" The lady said, brown hair in a bun with the lines of a pillow still upon her thin face. "I would so have loved to have seen the Morgan house. It's supposed to be quite grand."

"Well, it was, Nora." The head of the house said. "Perhaps we shall talk of it tomorrow at breakfast. Tonight, however, the hour grows late. Would you mind showing Miss Comstock to her room?"

"Of course, Mr. Johnson." She answered, a puzzled glance surveying the halls and steps outside as she closed the door. "Will her chaperone...not be taking to his?"

"I don't suppose..." I hesitated. "Suppose he has already...arrived?"

"No, Ma'am." Nora answered, face puzzled. In my heart I'd known he hadn't, but in that moment everything I'd been feeling must have shown.

Katharine's grimace was fleeting, the woman always ready with a smile. "That will be quite all right, Nora." She said, slender hand catching the banister of the stair that led up. "Mr. DeWitt shall be in later. He ran across...an old friend and said he'd walk back. I'll see Miss Comstock to her bed and you needn't worry about us. We appreciate you waiting up for us but as Robert observed, it _is_ late. You may take your leave."

"Why thank you, Mrs. Johnson. That's quite kind of you." Having finished placing fresh white towels and sheets into a closet just off the Salon, Nora smiled and with the briefest curtsy stepped out.

At the woman's departure Robert sighed, placing hat beneath arm as he took to the stairs. "Miss Comstock. DeWitt shall be fine. From the tales he regaled me with, he is not only a man of this great city but a man of action in the foremost...quite capable." Robert's words fell on dead space and beside me I caught Katharine glaring at him. He swallowed. "Perhaps I should turn in. If you shall excuse me, I shall leave you and my Dear to prepare your chamber." As his feet disappeared up the case, she glanced to my door and bid me enter. Inside the chamber was dark save for the street and head lights coming in through the windows.

"Elizabeth, _what happened_?" She asked, shutting the door, the gossamer lines about her eyes marred by worry.

"Oh, Katharine..." I answered, brushing the blue satin of my dress as tears weighed the corners of my own. "We had...we had an argument. I... _he_...was accusing me of being indiscreet with my affairs with Nikola and..."

"And what?"

"I...I told him he wasn't..." I wrung my hands and settled onto the sofa, a great heave escaping my chest. "I didn't think he'd actually leave!"

I felt the woman come beside me on the couch, her arm about my shoulders. "Please, Elizabeth...tell me."

"I can't!" I sobbed raggedly, slumping over the couch's arm. "It's too awful! How could I say that to him after what he's done for me!? And now with what we saw..."

"Elizabeth, I _don't_ understand!"

"Katharine..." I looked up to her, eyes wet and red, snuffling as I wiped tears away. "I know what we saw this evening, with Mr. Laslowe and Mr. Morgan, but...but you must know there is more to it. I...I am not from Columbia, Missouri, and neither is Mr. DeWitt. In fact, I...I was held captive for years...my whole life really. Mr. DeWitt...Booker...you see he...saved me. At risk to his life he came there and stole me back from the man... _men_...who'd imprisoned me and brought me _here_. He's not an educated man like your husband, but he's so very smart and kind and...and...brave." As I paused, I remembered how he'd broken into my prison only weeks before…and how over the next days Columbia and my father had made him pay for that sin with his blood. "And tonight we had an argument and in my haste and spite I was so thoughtless! I...insulted him!"

I held up my finger and showed her the thimble. "This tip...it is from _Columbia_ , but not some place in America but one _very_ far away. No, not _far_ away, nearby but impossible to get to...oh, goodness, it's a _city of its own_. And not any normal city. What you saw tonight with the dirigible...it wasn't the first. You see, Columbia, the place Booker rescued me from...it's a _flying_ city, powered by the very same induction as Nikola's demonstration. And there I was...imprisoned by my _Father_ for reasons you couldn't begin to fathom, and...and the reason I knew what Nikola was doing at Wardenclyffe..." Again I looked at the finger. "Was because he was making tears in the fabric of reality there with his machinery. I knew because with my finger I can _feel_ them." At my impulsive revelation Katharine sat stunned, and for a good moment didn't or couldn't think of anything to say. I grasped her forearm. "Oh, do _please_ say you don't think I'm mad!?"

The evening had been long, and in the carousing and ride home her hair had not behaved, fine strays glimmering in the dim yellow lamp light. She brushed a fallen lock of golden red aside. " _Flying_ city? _Feel_ them?" She questioned with cocked brow, almost beneath her breath.

"More than that." I brushed a fallen lock of hair from drenched cheek. "I used to be able to..." As earlier in the evening my finger twinged and I looked at it as if it were on fire. Katharine noticed too, looking to me with uncertain eyes. Once more it shocked and my gaze turned out the window and south.

"What is it?!" Katherine exclaimed with that worried face.

I looked up to her. "A tear... _another_ one."

#

"It's difficult to explain how I know, Mr. Johnson, I...I just know!" Overhead the elevated railroad darkened Third Avenue in the wee morning hours, making the drive even more treacherous as we barreled southward along its stanchions. I'd been exposed to automobiles only recently in life and to be in one at speed in such poor lighting was harrowing. "It's my finger, you see." I cried, eyes half on my white gloved stub and half upon the road flying by. "When...when one of these tears happens, like it did at Mr. Tesla's demonstration tonight, I feel a sort of shooting pain. Like a...a ghost pain people who've lost limbs talk about in books!"

"Tear?" Robert quipped. "You keep saying that word."

"It's a doorway...a breach in realities." I responded, realizing my glove had grown moist where I'd been biting my knuckle. "The very same thing Mr. Tesla used to levitate the airship this evening!"

"And you can sense them…these 'breaches in reality'…and tell direction like that, much like a homing pigeon?" He questioned, holding hat to head as Oscar swerved evasively about a truck offloading boxes.

Never had I thought of myself as a homing pigeon, though I'd never truly examined what variety of bird adorned the pendant upon my choker. "Yes...why I guess I can!"

"And where did our _Martha_ sense this 'tear?' Mr. Johnson asked, stroking his beard as Oscar drove, the barest smile touching his mustachioed lips. Despite my explanation and all we'd seen at Morgan's house, he still didn't believe me.

"Martha?" I puzzled, for he surely knew my name.

"My apologies at a poor play on words. Martha...the last remaining Passenger pigeon. In the Cincinnati Zoo?"

" _Passenger_ pigeon?"

Robert sighed.

It wasn't more than five minutes before we saw the red lights blinking up ahead, dozens of people in the street and policemen pressing the crowd back about their black patrol cars. As we pulled up before 108 Bowery, I could see upon the sidewalk a singular bloodied corpse covered in a sheet, laying upon the frontage of our old home. From beneath that gory linen a red and mutilated arm extended from into a pool of congealed blood. Beside it lay a soiled tuxedo jacket and black top hat. At the sight I gasped, the back of my hand finding my lips.

"My stars in heaven!" Robert exclaimed. At his outburst several of the onlookers turned to take in our arrival, perhaps more interested in how we were mounted than the incident. In the driver's seat Oscar rose to survey the situation.

"Booker!" I cried, dismounted our vehicle, pressing recklessly through the twenty or so onlookers, only be stopped by the policemen in their dark blue coats.

"No need to get any closer, Miss." A tall sergeant said, the coil of his handlebar mustache catching the streetlights as he barred my progress. "It's an awful mess over there."

"That…that man's my fath..." My voice cracked, unable to complete the word. Tears fell from my cheek.

"Hadley…is your father?" One of the onlookers said from beside me, a thin man in beige pants, rough boots, nightshirt and suspenders. "Didn't think the old drunk had any family."

"Ha…Hadley?" I asked, jolted back to reality.

"Yeah. The old geezer who took up squattin' in Moira Neary's lower hallway.

I looked again, seeing the man wasn't wearing black pants…or even shoes. A police wagon had pulled up and about the scene a man was taking photographs in bright flashes. As I puzzled over the man's comment, one of the policemen pulled back sheet to reveal a horrid sight…the flesh of the poor man's face had all but been removed. Both eyes and eyelids were missing. I gasped.

"Elizabeth." I heard from my side and realized Robert was there. "Is it…him?"

"No." I whispered, having to turn away. "But his jacket…the hat…"

"Young man…" Robert asked, turning to the fellow. "How…how did this happen?"

"No idea." He answered rather indifferently. I was dead asleep when Sonja rousted me, said there was a commotion going on."

"Did anyone see it?" Johnson continued louder. Whether they had or not, the slowness in response from the crowd was galling. "Officer…" He said, taking gently a constable by the forearm with the hook of his cane. "I am Mr. Robert Underwood Johnson, of the _Century Magazine_. The lady and I have reason to believe this incident of importance to us. Can you say what happened here?"

Behind him men had come to load the corpse onto a litter, and the officer's attention followed. "I'm afraid not. Not until all the witnesses have been properly interviewed and evidence taken. Now, if you'll just keep back, we can take care of our business here."

"But Sergeant, I have told you who I am and…"

Having turned away in his address to the crowed, the policeman stopped and returned to Robert. "I heard who you are, Mr. Johnson. Now, as I asked…keep back."

"What is your name and badge number, Sergeant?!"

"Mulchaney." He said with an ingratiating smile. "And 5532. Now, if you'll forgive me, Mister Robert Underwood Johnson, I need to clean up after a murder." He looked my chaperone over with a contemptible glance before walking to a fire wagon and procuring a mop. Coming forward, he offered it in hand. "Of course, you're welcome to assist if you'd like." When Johnson didn't take him up on his offer, he grinned and tipped his hat. "You be havin' a nice evening, then."

Appearing deflated, Robert glanced to me and forced a smile. "Perhaps I could have done that better."

"It's all right…" I took him by the hand and wiped stubborn tears away with my gloved fingers. "It's _not_ him. But poor…poor Mr…Hadley. I didn't even know his name. How do you think…"

"I seen it." A woman piped up from the back of the crowd. We turned to face her as white coated ambulance drivers closed their vehicles back doors.

"You… _seen_ it?" Robert asked.

"The end of it, at least." She continued. She was an older lady in a nightdress and robe, rough brown boots untied upon her feet. "Some man in a truck here, pulled up here, he did. Seen him and his pal going into the building and bringing out a bunch of crates and bottles. The old guy must've gotten annoyed because after a few trips he come at them cursin' and wailin', when all the suddens this guy…the driver…he takes a swig of one of them bottles and brings a whole flock of nasty black birds down on him with a swoop of his hand. Right out of the sky. It was horrible."

"He…brought a 'flock of black birds down upon him?" Robert repeated, puzzlement upon his face as he pressed his glasses back up his nose. "With his _hand_?"

"In shrieks and cries." She shook her head, gray hair falling over a wizened face. "Never seen anything like it. Never want to see nothing like that _again_."

"A flock of…"

"Crows."

"Crows." Robert followed. Beside her a pale young man was watching with dark hair and dark eyes, nodding but silent. People still in the crowd had taken to watching us, and as the ambulance and two of the patrol cars pulled away we could have heard a pin drop. "That…I am afraid the beggars the imagination."

"Then you explain it." The boy said. "Cause I seen it too."


	14. North Shore

**14\. North Shore - Early **Sunday Morning, August 4th, 1912****

I'd been under the impression our trip would be short, like to Brooklyn.

As the cold bit through the thin linen of my shirt and we pressed further into open waters, I began to realize that not the case. The cruiser was making a steady twenty knots outward into the Sound, intent on some destination further east. Behind us the cheering lights of the city diminished, replaced by a subsiding glow on the horizon and the sparkling harborside communities of Long Island and Connecticut. Coiled about me, the windings of rope made a poor blanket.

I'd never been much of a swimmer, good enough to keep from drowning when young women weren't involved, but with the fate of the _General Slocum_ still fresh in mind I figured it unlikely I'd make that distant, shimmering shore. Despite being resigned eventually to death, the thought bothered of me of leaving her alone.

But not as much as leaving her with Laslowe.

And Tesla.

And these Germans.

And Nick's henchmen with bottles of blinding birds. A month ago, I'd been certain of the way the world was…a dead end for me, but certain of its nature and where I was going to end up. Now my eyes had been opened to how small my viewpoint had been. I'd seen magic.

I'd seen _Elizabeth_.

When first she'd felt that tingle in her finger a week ago, I should have grabbed her and run. Now we were caught, and whatever web we'd been drawn into was closing fast. I looked at the Triple R in hand, its fine, murderous manufacture quite unlike any weapon of this world. A rifle with the power to release an unholy barrage in seconds yet remain light and cool enough to run with. And the packet carried _cases_ of them…maybe twenty. One could outfit a small army with twenty such rifles and defeat ten…a hundred times that many with Springfields. Following the demonstration of Mose's concoction in front of my old home, I dared not think about the terror the devil-woman bottles might bring. The boat swayed in the water and against that unrelenting breeze I pulled my arms tighter, having trouble keeping my eyelids open.

I woke to find us still cutting through the water but the eastern horizon brighter. Overhead in the sky an amethyst line separated stars in the still dark west from the oncoming ruddy sunrise. Realizing I'd fallen asleep, I startled. To the south I could see heavily forested cliffs of white sand and a town astern. Off to the starboard bow I could see the cottages of Shoreham…unmistakable, for before them upon the beachside escarpment rose the half-completed black framework of Tesla's steel tower.

Upon the prow Mose's boys were talking, the ones who hadn't nodded off in the cabin, pointing toward the tower and scratching their heads. I heard them laugh and exchange a rude joke. With the sky getting lighter, I realized my nest was soon to be exposed. It might have worked in the dark of night against tired mobster eyes, but morning was at hand.

The craft had a walkway that circumnavigated the cabin, one that had already been used too many times for my comfort. Figuring the only place I couldn't be seen was atop of the cabin itself, I climbed up the short wooden ladder at the stern and took refuge atop the superstructure. There beside the smokestack and hung dingy I hunkered down and waited. The only problem was that now I was exposed to the wind, and it was always coldest just before dawn.

We continued past Shoreham thankfully not more than two miles, heading into what had to be one of the few coves along this stretch of the northern shore. It was still dim, but as the pilot idled the craft, I could make out ahead a line of brush above us to the left and perhaps a quarter mile in the distance low, rolling hills. Coursing around the bend in a looming creek, the boat slowed and came to a halt alongside a dimly seen dock. Beside it upon a desolate road sat a Ford Model A and Model V truck in the twilight, lights off, a handful of men gathered about.

"Are you Mr. Speer?" Mose called from the prow, palm planted firmly in his jacket pocket.

"I am." The tallest answered with a German accent, stepping forward to water's edge. "I trust the arrangement we have with your superiors remain intact?"

"Depends..." Mose answered over the rocking of the boat as his men tied it off to a rickety dock. "Depends on whether or not you have the moolah."

"Moolah?" The passenger answered. Briefly he and his compatriot exchanged words, whispered but again distinctly German. My eyes narrowed. "Ah, yes." Speer continued, retrieving one of the two briefcases at his feet. "It is all here...seven thousand American dollars. Another five thousand is in this other satchel, as we agreed. I do assume you have the...special philter?"

On the deck of the cruiser emaciated Ricky lit a cigarette. With a toss of head 'Mose' had him produce the small box from the cruiser's cabin. From it he withdrew a single bottle that glinted beneath the sun just breaking to the east. "Yeah. Only, I don't get it. Seven grand for twelve cases of fire hooch and twenty guns…well that's one thing...but five for just _one_? What the hell is _in_ this?"

"Something…precious." Speer answered before setting the briefcase upon the bow of the boat. Cautiously he opened it to reveal stacks of carefully bundled greenbacks.

The stocky one knelt...thumbed through the cash before sealing the case anew. "All right, Ricky, boyos...it's all here. Let's move some crates."

To the cabin they went, bringing to the front of the stilled boat wooden case after wooden case of glinting, gleaming bottles, weapons and finally ammunition. From my position above I could see the words "Devil's Kiss" stenciled clearly upon the bottle cases. I'd not noticed that in the barn. The Germans took them eagerly though not with smiles. We'd had a few German families out across the Kansas prairie. I'd never known them to smile, either. Soon the bottles and crates were seated in the boat…all save the special. From my vantage point atop the boat I had a dim but decent view. Like the raven headed monstrosity it too was of black glass or crystal, though now I could see the strangest violet glint burning from within. I could see its stopper's shape clearly…a Conquistador sipping from a fountain of water.

The German looked at him and then to the remainder of the money. Mose smiled and handed it over. "It's all yours, pal.

"One question, Mr. Scarlotti." The leader asked, and as the dawn continued to brighten I could see his thin face, gaunt but refined with a thin mustache and otherwise clean shaven. "The weapons we have purchased have come highly recommended by our interlocuters in Munchen. However, we have no experience with firearms of this sort. I had it as an understanding from Mr. Terranova that we would be given a modicum of instruction prior to your departure."

"Nick never told me nothin' about stickin' here with youse." Mose answered calmly, drawing on his cigarette and leaving dead space in the conversation. "Got places to be. People to do."

The German…Speer…allowed himself a perfunctory smile. "Yes. I would expect so." Speer turned, nodding to the car. Both he and his lieutenant stepped to the door. "I would, however, assume that you are not on a fixed timetable with such a…distant delivery from the city. Behind him the man produced two stacks of greenbacks. My eyes widened. "Perhaps a few hours delay, you would not be missed?"

Scarlotti was a man of principle if anything, poor principal, and as he began to haggle on price…a hundred dollars for each in his crew of six, my mind reeled at that astronomical of a sum for a simple hour or two's work. The prospect of easy money had gained all his men's attention, and as they drew closer to the bow and Mose's deal making I took the opportunity to slip back down the ladder and off the back of the stern.

The water was godawfully cold.

Aiming not to be seen, I swam slow and deep, keeping to the shadowed far side of the boat until I was around the inlet of the creek and out of sight. Crawling onto the beach, I shook the Triple R out, taking it with me up the rocky incline to the sand hills and waiting woods to the east. About me early morning birds chirped and sang in the sawgrass, the sandy shore alive with life.

Climbing higher into the bush, I looked about to find anything that might lift the chill from my bones. With no relief obvious, I resigned myself to my discomfort and forced myself to the top of the rise, drawing upon my hands and knees, then low crawling to the crest of the long, shallow ridge overlooked the beach road and quayside gathering. By the time I regained sight of the rendezvous, the last of the crates had been loaded into the truck. Speer, Mose and Ricky were piling into the back seat of the Model V. Hastily I crested the ridgeline and headed for the back of the truck.

Approaching from the rear, I could see it laden with crates but otherwise unoccupied. Deciding I was meant to be a hobo, I kept to the shadows then the road, hefting myself into the vehicle as it began to back up. The brake came on and I fell forward against the bed.

"Was war das?" I heard from the driver's compartment.

"Hast du die kisten festgebunden?"

"Sollte ich? Wir haben kein Seil."

With nowhere to hide and nowhere to escape to, I cradled the Triple R and readied myself for a fight. Instead I saw the Model T drive past, a hushed exclamation from the front and we pulled out.

The vehicles travelled east for perhaps a half mile, the low ridgeline to the north blocking any view of the ocean. To the south a swampland stretched to the low rolling hills now more visible with the rise of the sun. With a bump upon the dirt the vehicle turned left, following the lead car up a shallow grade and into the woods. Trees passed by, the ocean and river behind us now visible as we climbed higher. Ahead around a switchback I saw Speer's Model V turn into the sparse yard of a three-story whitewashed beach house set upon a high escarpment that overlooked the sea. Realizing we were going to follow, I climbed out and rolled into the underbrush beside the road as the truck slowed to make the bend. Fifty feet up the road the truck stopped and turned in after Speer.

I'd no idea of how many of them there were, so I kept to the embankment in the road and peered through the brush to catch a glimpse, weapon at the ready. Beside the house stood a barn, and as two men emerged from the main building the men in the truck got out and went to the barn doors to throw them open. I saw the two from the house approach, one with a noticeable hobble.

My pulse, not exactly even these last hours, picked up a beat. Wishing to be closer to overhear their conversation, I made my way through the thicket and trees surrounding the place to the northern approach. There at the bottom of a forested slope perhaps a quarter mile away, Long Island Sound stretched far as the eye could see…all the way to the squiggly green horizon that was Connecticut. Minding my step so as not to snap twigs or stir wildlife, I came thirty feet from the men, nestled in the morning shadow of a soaring oak.

"The yard will do nicely." I heard Mose say. "How many guys you have?"

"Six here, at the moment. Another twenty, tomorrow night…after dark. Is there no chance you might remain?"

Mose took a Repeater in hand, cleared it and looked about. "Not unless you got a lot more money. Nick and Ciro wants us back in time for business tomorrow."

"Business?" The German asked.

"Yeah." Mose said as he drew a magazine from the open ammunition box at his feet. "A friend of ours…he's got a date with a barrel."

"A…barrel? As in a gun? I am afraid I do not understand."

Mose smirked at the man, jammed the clip home and racked the weapon again. "No, not this kind'o barrel." He pointed with the gun toward the veranda that surrounded the cottage, toward the entrance to the cellar and the woodpile beside it. "Them logs over there beside the house. Have your boys bring a dozen or two over and set 'em up as targets along the edge of the lawn back there. We'll shoot off the cliff into the drink. Ain't no one there."

#

The crack of bullets shattered the morning calm soon after, shots whizzing overhead where I'd taken to cover. As the men chopped logs with their Columbian street sweepers, I slipped down the grade, working my way into a ravine to the east and back up behind the barn. Figuring the men occupied in their target practice, I took the moment to slip in through the old structure's side window, finding their vehicles parked and crates stacked in the loft. Oddly, the roof overhead was fitted with a door, connected to a pulley system strung through the rafters to open it. It looked a lot newer than the place's old timber. In its shadow upon the loft's plank deck a klieg light sat, rigged by a long black cable to a silent gas-powered generator on the dirt below.

With the racket continuing outside, I hastened up the ladder, removing from one of the top cases a vixen-headed bottle. For good measure I gathered a raven along with it, placing the case first beneath the others in a manner the bottles would not be missed. Without the bottle in place, the new upper case tilted and almost fell over. Catching the wayward crate with my hand, I pondered a moment and looked at the bottles. A bottle needed to be there.

How had he done it? Realizing I'd need every advantage, I unstopped the raven and sniffed the vapor. It smelled foul, like must and decay. Holding my nose, I drank it down, deciding it couldn't be worse than the stuff I'd been gargling in my apartment before Elizabeth.

I was wrong.

#

We'd arrived at the Johnson's house near four in the morning, or so the grandfather clock in their foyer had tolled. Despite Robert's admonitions I'd been quietly inconsolable, though on the way back I didn't burden him with such feelings. The fact was, however, that a man had _died_ in a horrific manner _,_ and while Mr. Johnson seemed rather unfazed by the event, I felt awful. In our weeks at 108 Bowery, Booker hadn't let me talk to the man, nor had in our passing the poor drunk had anything kind to say, but I had known him. And worse, I had been _happy_ when I'd realized it was him lying there, dead…him and not Booker. And I wouldn't have changed that. Thinking myself horrid, I'd returned in Katharine's company to their guestroom and cried myself to sleep.

Alertness came late with the sound of automobiles, their puttering carrying through the drapes on the wafting breeze. Slowly I rolled beneath the covers, feeling the blankets draw and weight, remembering not only the noise outside but my endless nights alone, like this, incarcerated in my wind-pounded prison. In my mind anew I heard my words to him from the night before. Saw that look upon his face.

Unable to bear that memory yet another time, I rose and threw the blankets off, sitting upon the side of the bed with head in hands until the smell of bacon and pancakes assaulted my nose. For a few minutes I sat thinking of the man shredded in the street…knowing Booker had somehow been there. Eventually I rose and took to the bathroom, discovering after relieving myself the damage a poor night's sleep had done to my reflection. I washed my face and brushed the hair out, feeling the little ivory handle pull through my hair, breaking knots, feeling the tug upon my scalp, the pain pulling my conscience away from what I feared. Yet my heart wouldn't stop fluttering. How could he just…leave?

Outside I heard Katharine say _good morning_ to her husband in a subdued manner. Beyond the door I heard, "Bowery is on the front page, but not a mention of the method." As I tied my ribbon in hair I eavesdropped on their turmoil.

"Are you certain the woman said _birds?_ "

"I am positive. And the policemen present heard her also. Just ask the young lady, or Oscar. They were there too."

"Perhaps an investigation of yours for the Century?"

"I am not an investigative journalist, woman. Besides, I did try to evoke some details but was soundly rounded by the Officers present. It is probably just as well…were I to put such a story in print, all of New York would think me mad."

"Perhaps that's what the poor reporter covering this story thought, too."

The door creaked as I emerged from my room, drawing their eyes. Walking through the empty salon, I saw Booker's door still closed. I carried on, emerging into the foyer and across into the dining room to the pleasure of my hosts.

"Elizabeth…good morning." Katharine said, taciturn face lighting up.

I offered a smile of my own, though a faint one. "Good morning. I trust you are both well?"

"As well as can be for such a late bedtime. I must say, it seems to have taken a toll."

"Robert!" Katharine chided, giving the man a smolder that could have caused the paper to erupt in flame. She turned my way and smirked. "You look just _fine_. Nothing a little motherly attention won't remedy. Do sit with us, Elizabeth. I'll fix you a plate."

"Thank you, but I'm really not that hungry."

"Nonsense. You hardly ate at dinner last night and need your nourishment." Standing, she drew my plate from its placement and proceeded to adorn it with crispy slices of bacon, scrambled eggs and two golden brown pancakes. At the side she poured me a wine glass of orange juice and set out a miniature china teapot of maple syrup. A dollop of butter was added atop it, yellow and creamy. And it did smell good. I closed my eyes and said a prayer, more for my father than the meal, and commenced to pick at it. Katharine and Robert watched me as they tarried with their own affairs. Before I knew it, I'd finished it all.

"Would you like another pancake?" Katharine asked, almost with glee. I suppose it is a womanly thing, but she seemed to hang upon my response…almost doting. Aside from Booker, no one had ever doted on me before and she seemed so earnest. Her husband had returned to his newspaper, turning the pages.

"Yes. I do think I would. Thank you."

Katharine slipped a cake upon my plate and slid the syrup and butter dish my way. Beneath my brow I smiled faintly and poured. I ate at it slowly now, becoming more lost in my thoughts. Eventually Robert folded his paper and set it down upon the table, perturbed.

"Regarding this bird business…I believe I'll have Oscar take me down to City Hall today and have a word with the Chief. Perhaps he'll know something more."

"Oh, please don't mention B…Mr. DeWitt." I implored.

"But, my Dear, that is the whole point of the matter. You wished to find him last night and we met with poor favor. If I were to engage the authorities…"

"Mr. Johnson…" I interrupted. "Mr. DeWitt has had some unfortunate dealings, not of his will, with some of the seedier elements of Manhattan. I would hate for him to be tied to them or become a wanted man. I trust you shall use discretion in your inquires?"

"Elizabeth…" He said, seeing my eyes wide. "Oh, very well. I shall inquire about this…bird killing, and ask perhaps if any…any _other_ homicides occurred last night. At least we could rule out foul play in his disappearance."

"Thank you." I said in some relief. "And thank you for your hospitality, but with Mr. DeWitt…gone…I am at a loss for what to do."

"Concerning this tear business." Robert continued. "I do not believe I have ever heard of such a thing. And Nikola's demonstration last night…also, as you say, based upon these breaches in…"

"Space. And time, even."

"Space and time. Sounds like Einstein." He answered. "Do you think there may be a connection?"

"Most assuredly I do. That is why I wanted to find Mr. DeWitt so badly. We must return to Wardenclyffe."

"You are welcome to stay with us, Elizabeth, for as long as you require." Katharine was quick to say, and I gathered by that hopeful glimmer in her eyes the prospect of my company was not one of mere hospitality.

"I…would, but as you heard last night, I have obligations with Mr. Tesla. With the Morgans and Astors of the world breathing down his neck, he needs to make progress and I… _we_ …need to get to the root of what is going on. The first tear…I felt it there, at Mr. Tesla's establishment. Mr. DeWitt…" I paused, guilt weighing my words, allowing me only to continue with a whisper. "He…he knows I am there, should he come calling. And I am ashamed to admit we need the money."

"Not a good idea, a young lady travelling unescorted." Robert answered before pressing his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose.

"Nor to be _poor_ , Robert. Now that we've missed church, I've nothing important to do today. Perhaps _I_ shall accompany her."

" _Accompany_ her?!" Robert said with furrowed brow. "Need I remind that you have engagements of your own making here, Katharine?"

"Yes, and I have equal responsibility to ensure Miss Comstock and Nikola are taken care of. Shoreham is not a terribly long train ride…merely an afternoon. I shall look in on Nicki and see to Elizabeth's well-being in the process."

"You forget, my Dear…the trains do not run on Sundays. And of your 'ladies gathering' here tomorrow evening?" He huffed. "Will you leave them with _me_?"

"I shall ask Oscar to drive us. As for my soiree..." Katharine laughed, smiling brightly. "I should be back by then, but if my visit is delayed, I shall call them from Nikola's estate and take a rain check. Any I miss, Nora may attend to."

"I am certain Oscar shall greatly enjoy a six hour drive out into the hinterlands." Her husband said sarcastically. "After last night, perhaps we could give the poor man a rest? It is, after all, Sunday. It's bad enough that we missed the sermon."

Katharine seemed abashed…but only for a moment. "You are correct, Robert. Our good man need not be further engaged…he deserves his day off. I shall drive."

"You shall _what_?" Johnson boomed, baritone rattling the china in its cupboard. Her endeavor decided, with an impish smile the woman's emerald eyes turned my way.

"You heard me, Robert. I shall drive and perhaps teach Elizabeth in the process."

"You most certainly shall not!" He came back, shoving back from the table.

"Indeed I shall, unless you wish to come with us? You _do_ believe in the emancipation of women, do you not?" Seated by the table, Robert seemed at a loss for words. Again she smirked. "Then it is settled. Come, Elizabeth. We must get you ready then pack!"

#

Two hours later we set out from 327 Lexington with Katherine at the wheel of their sleek motor car. Sitting in the front seat of such a powerful machine was a novelty and watching her drive more than a thrill, for I had not seen a woman drive befofe. At Katharine's suggestion I'd donned a lilac skirt, lighter than the fare Booker had bought for in the weeks before. A thin black belt trimmed my waist, while a white blouse with bell sleeves adorned my torso and arms. The outer layer of the blouse's fabric was sheer...almost gossamer, the overall ensemble having the form of my Columbian keepsake blue skirt and white blouse but with different shade. In keeping, I'd exchanged the blue ribbon tying my ponytail for lavender twin.

"Do you drive much?" I cried over the rush of the wind outside, wondering how Katharine could manipulate the many pedals and levers while keeping her oversized hat in place. She'd chosen to wear a long dress of pale green, its collar tight but overall complementing the fiery gleam in her hair.

"I do get out once in a great while, much to Robert's chagrin." She said loudly over the bluster. Making a left turn, she honked her horn at a horse drawn cart daring to get in her way, then turned north after a block onto a street labeled Second Avenue. Had I been Booker I'd have certainly known where I was, but New York City _wasn't_ Columbia…and I was lost. I did know, however, that we were racing north, as much as one could race amid the congestion of multi-hued machines mixed with animal carts. Ahead in the early afternoon light rose a lovely four-pointed bridge on four buff stone piers. I don't know why I supposed we'd just drive by, but soon Katharine slowed and turned, joining a succession of automobiles up a long, ascending ramp. Moments later we were rising beneath those great black trusses hundreds of feet over the East River. I had flashbacks of Columbia.

"What is it, Elizabeth!? You look petrified!"

Besides us the bridge's iron bracings flew by, overhead a deck upon which trains ran. To our right a trolley flashed by. "I'm sorry…it reminds me of my home, it's so high up!" Below an island passed, many-windowed red brick buildings upon its southern tip that must have been some important facility. Beyond them and down the river, back towards Downtown and the Bowery, I could see on the river's eastern side a ferry, disgorging passengers at the railyard Booker and I had slipped away at days before…the beginning our great adventure. The thought banished my excitement with sudden and intractable loneliness.

"We're almost off." Katharine announced a minute later, and soon the river gave way to smoke puffing factories and sandy fields on the eastern decline.

"Is this…Brooklyn?" I asked, wishing perhaps, now that the shade of the city and bridge had been left behind, I'd something like Katharine's hat. Around us tenements rose much like Manhattan, red and brown brick four stories high with awnings galore, but more spread out.

"No, this is Queensboro." She answered, coming to an abrupt stop behind a heavily laden truck and similarly horse drawn wagon. Katharine was handy with the horn and pulled around them abruptly, almost colliding with a gaggle of barefooted boys dashing across the street.

"What do you think you're doing lady!?" The teamster said, and from the truck behind him I heard a man cry 'woman drivers!" For her part Katharine was quite visibly shaken. Not wishing to endure further ridicule, as the last of the children headed for a water fountain, she put the vehicle into gear and headed on our way.

"You don't drive much, do you?" I prodded as we passed buildings on the right and left.

"Robert isn't fond of it, no." She said with a dour look, eyes keenly ahead upon the road. "He would have rather had Oscar take us, but it being Sunday the poor man needed a break and frankly so did I."

"From Robert, you mean?"

After a more careful assessment of the road ahead, she accelerated and glanced to me. "I thought we could discuss matters in private, woman to woman. Perhaps he sensed that. Either that or he was anticipating his meeting at the Club this evening and wished no interruption."

Eastward we drove, passing signs calling out Queens Boulevard and Hillside Avenue, the roads paved with long stretches of red and brown brickwork. Town turned to scattered building and greenery, all the time reminding me of my dreamlike train ride with Booker. By now the adjoining avenues were of dirt and dusty. It had been two hours and the sun threatened to burn before a line of ominous clouds arrived from the northwest. Studying the darkening sky, Katharine came to a halt.

"What is it?" I asked, noticing now a dark veil trailing beneath that fast-moving line of aerial skyscrapers. The trees were blowing about us and leaves flying in the breeze.

"I just know it is here somewhere." She said in consternation.

"What?" I asked.

"Vanderbilt's raceway." With furrowed brow she placed the car in gear and rolled on slowly as if trying to jog her memory. As she did, the two of us or perhaps our conveyance were ogled by a broad-faced truck driver going the other way. "Good Sir!" Katharine suddenly cried out, parking hastily in a manner that jolted the car and me with it. As I caught myself upon the front panel, she adjusted her hat and smiled. "Could you be a gem and tell us the way to the Long Island Motor Parkway? I was here last year with my husband but seem to have lost the way!"

"No, ye ain't." The man said, tipping his had to her. Dressed in a white shirt with blue overalls, he thumbed his way up the road as a pair of men looked on from beneath the awning of a closed leather shop. "This is the Rocky Hill Road. Parkway's just up there at the juncture. Ye aren't from these parts, are ye?"

"No." Katharine answered with satisfied look over her shoulder to me. "We're from Manhattan."

"Yeah." He smirked, looking us over. "I ken tell."

"See?" She said as she pulled out, ignoring the driver's continuing inspection. "I was right." Down the road a sign beside a toll booth advertised the _Long Island Motor Parkway_ …"For Motor Cars Only – Absolutely Dustless!" She dropped a silver dollar into the hand of the attendant with a triumphant smile and we were off. An hour later and twenty miles on, it wasn't the dust I was worried about.

"Katharine, I do think we should stop!" I cried out as lightning cracked to our right, splitting a tree. Outside rain was pouring down and sluicing across the road, at times driving horizontally through the windows to produce a spittle upon us both. Having seen her face grown progressively more fraught, the tree splitting bolt was the last straw. She pulled off upon the grass beneath thrashing trees as black clouds thundered overhead.

"I…I do think you might be right, Elizabeth." She answered, and I could see upon her face both worry and guilt. "Oh, what if we are lost out here, or run out of gasoline?"

"How…how much do we have?"

"I'm not certain." She answered. "But I suppose I should not let the automobile waste it." With a press of the ignition she turned the car off.

To the tossing trees about us I looked. "Where…where do you think we are?"

"The last milepost I saw claimed ten miles from Lake Ronkonkoma. From there we would head north upon less tidy roads. If ever we get there, that is. Oh, I had thought I knew the route from our sightseeing last year, but now I am not so certain!" As the rain continued to pour I listened to Katharine's words, still concerned but with the automobile stopped, not with our imminent demise. "Robert…Robert was right. We should have waited until tomorrow and taken the train. This is all my fault."

"I'm sorry." I answered. "I didn't mean to set you into this predicament. If it matters, I'd no idea a storm was brewing." Seeing her discomfiture, I took her hand. "And I do appreciate what you've done for me…me and Boo…Mr. DeWitt. Even if he does not."

With the wind still howling she removed the pins that held the hat in place, set them with it in the back seat and let her hair down. "I suppose there is no one to impress here. He shall come back to you, Elizabeth."

"How could you know that?" I asked sorrowfully, realizing she'd been reading my mind.

"Because he loves you. The people who love us always come back to be in our lives." She'd looked outside to the rain, gaze distant into the gray sky between the arbored arches above. "They cannot help it."

"Katharine…I hope you do not mind me prying, but…but are affairs… _well_ …between you and Mr. Johnson?"

She didn't look at me, instead sighing as thunder rumbled anew overhead. "As well as thirty years of marriage can attest."

"But do you… _love_ him?"

At my words she flashed me an angry look and withdrew her hand. "Of course, I do! What kind of question is that to be asking a…"

"An _honest_ one." I answered, taking it back in mine with earnest eyes. "I've told you _my_ story, as mad as it sounds. I've known nothing of love until Mr. DeWitt came into my life. Nothing. No…courting…not even another human being to speak to for _years_. How am I to know what love is? Tell me."

At such a romantic notions Katharine seemed to soften, brushing her hair back as her eyes turned distant and dewy. "You'll…you'll know it when your heart races at the thought of him coming through the door. When his every word is like a balm to your troubled mind. When at the sight of him, at his stories and tales, you are totally and utterly lost."

"Why…why did you agree to drive me all this way into the face of storm?" I finally asked, already knowing the answer. "Kind as you've been, I find it difficult to imagine it was truly for my sake." Her silence betrayed her. "Does your husband know?"

"He…does. I suspect he's known for years. He also knows that my honor is beyond reproach. I would…would never act…upon the frailties of my heart. And I _do_ love Robert, in a way a woman comes to love the man she was betrothed to…who has embarked upon the project of children and family."

"But you love Nikola, too."

She closed her eyes and a tear slipped down her cheek. Before another could fall she wiped it away with her glove.

#

The storm lessened an hour after, bringing wind and light rain to our battered vehicle. Katharine changed the subject as we got underway, talking about the wind and rain until finally we came upon a travel lodge at the end of the Parkway. Nestled in the trees of a small town, the lodge's damp attendant pumped our car with gasoline while from inside Katharine acquired a road map, one that showed us exactly where we were…which was precisely in the middle of Long Island. Having gained her bearings but with daylight in diminishing supply, we headed on our way.

We headed north via Sayville Road…whose name I knew not because of convenient markings but because Katharine had recruited me as her navigator. St. James, Stony Brook, and Port Jefferson we passed through, small towns all compared to the great city in the west, heading along the so-called North Country Road until beneath those lingering dark clouds the mysterious tower of Tesla could be seen jutting above the treetops. Recognizing where we were, I motioned to the left and the sign that announced _Shoreham._

"This is Woodville Avenue. Mr. DeWitt and I…we have extended lodgings in down that way. The view of the ocean is lovely, and it is far too late to return to the city. Please stay with me the night."

"Are you staying at the Shoreham Inn?" She asked.

"Hapgood's Bungalows. As I said, the view was better, though not the price. It is summer, we have discovered."

Seeming to dispel any unease she might have had with the road, she turned left. Woodville was much as we had left it the day before, though muddied. Along its extent I'd hoped to see him, perhaps walking, perhaps waiting on Hapgood's veranda for my return, key in hand. I got out of the machine quietly before she turned the motor off. Walking to the boot, I opened it and retrieved her bag and mine, handing it to her with a sad smile. "We're around in back."


	15. Red Sky at Morning

**15\. Red Sky at Morning - Sunday Afternoon, August 4th, 1912**

It was as though my very _bones_ were cracking.

Before me my hand seemed to waver and darken, my heart began to race, my vision blurred. Black encompassed my fingertips in a wave of sickening necrosis…fingertips turning to hook like claws. Upon my wrist a crow landed, cawing, and in his bewildering eyes I saw _death_.

I lay in the straw hallucinating for who knows how long, trying to parse nightmare from reality. I only knew this…were the bird real or not, with this power I could _kill_. And if these men were putting their sights on Tesla, I was going to _need_ to. I also knew they couldn't be allowed to possess these infernal draughts of Mose Scarlotti…not at any cost.

With my heart still pounding I managed to stammer to my feet, searching in a stumble straw covered dirt then the stalls of the barn for something to smash the philters with. I found a rake, a hoe and a pitchfork, then hangings of old horse tackle, but nothing like a bat. For a moment in my daze I considered blasting them or simply clobbering them with the butt of the Triple R, before realizing that such chaos would surely get me captured and more likely dead, dead, dead. The bottles were, however, filled with liquid. With the men preoccupied out in front with their shooting lessons, one by one I unstacked the crates and began to unstop the bottles, draining their contents out the back window and onto the grass a few feet below, replacing it with fermenting rainwater from a filthy barrel near the front doors.

Upon the ground the liquid burned and seethed, seeming as I poured it to rot the very earth itself. _Marlowe's Patented Vigors._ _Murder of Crows._ The label read, swirling around a white-haired gentleman's balding, smiling face as he caressed the bottle…a bottle I now saw was shaped entirely like a bird itself. _Proven Deterrent Against Hooligans_. Thirty-six bottles of birds. Thirty-six bottles of death. Deterrent was an _understatement_.

Ensuring the bottles were placed carefully and clean back into their cases, I examined the fiery bitch next, admiring her proportions and attempting to figure out exactly what _she_ did. Onto the ground out back I poured them one by one, the liquid steaming and hissing like it had come from the bowels of hell itself. Outside the shooting had stopped, and I hastened to fill the bottles and reseat them in proper stack. I'd kept one for last, looking it over before rechecking my work. No water spilled, hardly any straw disturbed…seventy one bottles drained into the dirt. Figuring my work was done, bottle and gun in hand I slid to the door, hoping to hear something in English I might understand.

I should have poured her out.

Yet, something about her lines kept me fascinated, and with Mose talking quietly to the German's head guy, my gaze was inexorably drawn back to her beckoning eyes. Outside clouds were growing heavier, the trees blowing in an unsettled breeze. As I looked at her, she almost seemed to look back, enticing me, and in a weird way I thought back to the bird drink and liked how it had tasted. Against my better judgement I unstopped her and watched a whiff of sparkling fume rise, sniffed at the stuff and took a drink.

My scream echoed through the woods.

"Schell!" I heard the tall German shout as he swung to the barn. Beside him and Mose, his five men were suddenly in motion, a heavier set German in gray coat first to bring his new toy to bear. There was nothing I could do about it. My entire hand and forearm were on _fire_. In agony I screeched anew, my howls sending the black birds waiting on the rooftop to flight. The barn doors flung inward. Bottle in hand, I looked up from the dirt and bellowed again…just in time to catch a jackboot in the face.

Upon the straw I groaned and rolled over…pressed myself up, seeing blood dripping from my mouth upon the matted straw. Though my arm blazed, instinctively I reached for the Triple R that had come to rest beside me. The goon kicked it away across the dirt and slammed me in my gut, doubling me over. He had his own Triple R.

I rolled from the straw to just in time to spoil his cracking shot...arriving upon the ground at 'Ricky's' feet. His boot too caught me in the gut and I jolted, but before he could deliver his next kick I rolled, slower than I'd have liked, but quick enough to catch him with my leg and knock him to the ground. Amid a pock marked face the creep's brown eyes looked back to me with homicidal intent. Before he could act, I practiced a little homicide of my own and slammed his skull into the side of a wheel barrel. Above me the German's repeater barked after my diving form. Ricky took it in the back.

I lunged headlong into the gunner from my dying cover, taking him to the grass outside the inward flung barn doors. I hit him in the face and then again, fists and brimstone flying, each time the man coming up until I swung hard and bashed him into dusty, smoldering oblivion. As he fell his gun came loose and spun off to the dirt outside.

I dove upon it, only to be blocked by one of the goon's feet. About my sides three fresh Germans gathered. Behind me the one I'd beaten was moaning in the straw, Ricky slumped to the ground behind me…bleeding from the horrendous holes carved in his spine but still upon his knees. Beyond him Mose was swigging from his bottle. "I'd ask who about you are, stranger, but there ain't gonna be nothin' left of you to pose da question to!" With that same demonic gaze he's torn the bum to shreds, he stuck his hand out. My eyes saucered but in that instant Speer caught his forearm.

"Nein!" He bellowed, just as I heard screeching from above. "Take him alive!"

That I was not going to allow.

"The rat bastard killed Ricky! He's mine!" Mose argued.

"No…he is no!" The German said and produced at Mose's head a pistol from his coat. "At least _not_ until we learn who he is. As I said, Gunter, Leopold, Rudolf…take him ALIVE!"

Two of his henchmen charged, one from the front and one from my flank. The flank man was blonde and could have been a recruiting poster for the Navy. His forearm came about my throat as I came up, trying to put me into a choke hold. Perhaps he'd been schooled in wrestling or jujitsu, but he hadn't been learned much strikebreaking. Once then twice I elbowed him in the chest, harder the second time out of desperation for air. Audibly a rib cracked and he cried out then released his grip, gasping for his own breath. I spun and busted his chops hard, sending his eyes rolling back into his head and the back into the barrel which tipped and spilled across the inner barn.

The other stunned me with a fist to the chin, sending me stumbling into the open barn door. Instinctively I spun, threw my arms up to catch his next blow and returned it so hard that blood and teeth sprayed against the door's wooden planks.

With my jaw still aching I forced myself upward, bracing in time to meet the next man's rush…wishing I had that old Columbian skyhook. In gray coat like the rest, this German was more cautious than the others. He threw a left feint at me then another, followed by a right upper cut. Each I dodged, whipping side to side then back. All in on the last, he opened himself up. With hands clasped together I came down on his upper back with my elbows, breaking his back and sent him crashing to his knees. He groaned in pain, fumbling in his pockets for a glint that might have been a gun or knife. With a hell borne anger I brought my right knee into his chin, sending his head crashing in a fiery plume into the gunnel he'd plastered me upon. He slumped to the deck and I figured him out cold at least...possibly dead. I heard the cock of a gun at the back of _my_ head.

"Who are you?" The head man said before me in stilted English...holding with his arm Mose at bay.

"You first." I answered, looking over shoulder into his eyes. At my side my arm tingled, and I realized it was brimming with hellish power. He sneered and nodded to his remaining moaning men upon the dirt. On the ground I saw a shadowed arm rise, followed by swift, sharp blow.

#

"Wake him up." I heard a gravelly Italian voice say. "Speer wants to see him."

I opened my eyes to see a blur, a blur that resolved into golden fleur de lis upon forest green wall paper. I was in an interior room, perhaps twenty feet across. The next thing I noticed is that I was bound, ankles tied, hands behind me against the wall. Painfully so. Outside through the window I could see dark clouds racing overhead, tree tops thrashing against a dark squall line. In the distance I saw a stroke of lightning.

"Ich verstehe nicht?" Came in response.

"Speer will den gefangenen sehen. Hol ihn dir."

To my left the door opened and two men stood in gray coats, their faces like iron and glaring at me. Behind them stood Mose with a similar expression. As bad as my day had been, I realized it was about to get worse. Wasting no time, Speer's remaining men pressed upon me, coming to my bloodied sides to lift me by bound arms to my feet. One leaned in and cut the bindings about my ankles, freeing my legs. By the looks of his missing teeth he was one I'd done my best work on, and he knew it too…he looked as though he was just waiting for the orders to kill me.

"Comm mit mir, du verdammter Schweinehund!" The taller, facially reconfigured German said, yanking me roughly along after him. Unable to balance I slammed into the door jamb, only to be kicked from behind so hard I felt my back might snap. On the way down the hall we sallied past a room whose windows were open summer style to the breeze and now the approaching storm. Inside I saw a man with a headset on, tapping out a message on what looked to a Morse telegraph, books and paper strewn about him upon a table. There were three boxes, dials lit up from within and needles pointing to frequencies. "Augen voraus, verdammt noch mal!" Again, I felt the boot in the back, stumbled forward and slammed into the wall.

My face left a blood stain as I pulled away, only to be pushed down the steps that wound down a square stairwell to the first floor. As I fell onto the carpet Speer hovered in the company of his remaining three men, looking up from a book and several charts he had folded out from a repurposed dinner table.

"He is still alive." Their leader said, putting the maps down and stepping around the table.

Not far away, Mose nodded, clad in his own tan coat and hat, face expressionless. "And my buddy Ricky ain't."

"Nor is one of my operatives." Speer added, glancing at his busted-up lackeys. "We have an equal bone to pick with our spy."

"So, the only question now is who gets his carcass?" Mose paced about me, his unshaven jaw clenched, eyes simmering.

"After we find out who he is working for and what he heard, we shall have no need for him, Mr. Scarlotti. Should your superiors desire his company, that is."

"Oh, I am most certain they shall." Mose strolled before me where I'd fallen, grabbed me by the chin and forced me to my knees. I wanted to lash out, to strike, but I hurt so badly even his grasp sent streaks of pain shooting down my neck. I hurt everywhere. "Booker DeWitt." He said, looking into my eyes. "Ciro's been looking for you. Says you showed some bad manners a week ago and that that's a no-no. Seems like you're just full of bad manners."

"So, what are you doing to do, shoot me?" I rasped, knowing I was already dead. "Skin me alive?"

"Reasonable question. Was it me, dat sounds like a start. Then maybe I'd put a bullet in your nuts, rip off your face and stuff you in a barrel. I like doin' that…leaves an impression on all the other punks who think they can mouth off to a mafioso."

"Nick said we were good." I managed, a dribble of blood welling the corner of my mouth. "Last time I checked, he ran things Uptown."

"Maybe you _was_ good…wif _Nick_ , dat is. Ciro's a different kettle of fish altogether and let it be known he wanted to see you for a good price. Course, I don't know you from Shinola, but a little call to Nick and guess what I have? That's right…payday. Still, it's possible I could let you go, _if_ you tell me what you were doing here…how you knew about this meetin' and how you got here?"

Through swollen eyelids I looked up to him. "You think I'm stupid enough to think you're gonna let me go after what I did to your pal? Or with Ciro paying out a contract on me?"

He smirked, hauled back and smashed his fist into my gut. I went to the floorboards but the Germans held me up. Mose smiled and shook his hand out. "It was worth a try. Tell me what you know."

"I don't know noth…"

Before the words could come from my mouth he slammed me again. "What you doin' here Booker DeWitt?! What'd you _see_?! I know you're an old Pinkerton. What the hell did you _see_!?"

"I…" I closed my eyes, swallowing painfully to the taste of metal in my mouth. "I saw you and these guys making some kind of deal…saw some kind of booze and thought you were…"

As I spoke Mose gritted his jaw and turned away, only to swing back and bash me across the face, sending me spilling across the floor. To the rug I thumped, breathing heavy beside the radiator. "You know how much that 'booze' cost me for your little drink, bub?! Why are you here!? How did you find out about this meetup!?"

He nodded and the goons dragged me back to my knees. Now there were two Moses. Moses. My eyes bugged out. I tried to breath…tried to even gasp. Mose knelt beside me in triplicate. "Tongue feeling a little looser?"

"Mr. Scarlotti…" Speer said in his accented English. "If you kill him, then we shall never divine how he learned of us, nor how he was able to locate our meeting."

"I ain't gonna kill him." The killer hissed, though everything in the tone of that wicked snarl said otherwise. "Least not _yet_. Ciro's coming in late tonight by boat just to pay our 'friend' a visit. Wanted to make this special…personal, like, you know? Still, he ain't no better at getting information out of people than I am."

"Perhaps we can get him to talk where your…methods…fall short?" Speer suggested.

"What have you got in mind?" Outside lighting flashed, followed by the crack of close thunder. The Germans jumped but Mose hardly flinched. Down the stairs I heard the race of feet and the man I'd seen at the boxes above came winding around the square flight. "Herr Speer, _Engels_ berichtet, dass sie starken gegenwind bekämpfen und heute abend keinen erfolg haben warden! Commissionar Zinn weist darauf hin, dass der uberfall bis spät in den späten morgen verschoben wird, um die dunkelheit zu nutzen!"

'Sie können heute abend nicht machen?" Speer shot back, a look of distress upon his face. "Verdammt! Zeichen ihnen, dass wir für einen weiteren tag bereit sind, aber einen gefangenen gemacht haben. Ein mann, der uns ausspionierte."

"Ich entschuldige mich, aber ich kann nicht." The radio operator explained, expression worried as his body language. "Das radio...wurde durch den sturm beschädigt und wir können nicht mehr empfangen oder senden."

"What's goin' on?" Mose asked at the flurry of angst-ridden German in the room.

Speer glanced his way, his men likewise. "Our wireless has been damaged...perhaps permanently. Something about the electrical storm." Outside another bolt of lightning crashed, followed by rolling thunder. Rain began to pelt the courtyard and rooftops, coming down suddenly in a deluge. Eyes turned. "We shall have to find alternate methods of contacting our people, but it must be soon."

"Don't have a radio up my sleeve." Mose answered, eyes casting to my sorry wreck. "Doubt Mr. DimWitt does either."

"No…" Speer said, beady eyes narrowing upon me before glancing over shoulder to look west. "Likely not. But I believe I know someone who might."

 **Early Monday Morning, August 5th, 1912**

"What...what do you think he meant?" Katharine asked from the bathroom, voice reedy and uncertain as I stood upon the balcony.

From the beach I could hear a light surf, behind me the rustle of curtains at the French door in the morning breeze. As she departed the lavatory I held the brush Booker had bought for me in hand, answering as I looked upon it. "I've no idea...other than someone's watching the tower, or even Wardenclyffe. Mr. DeWitt said the pipe had been cut and the wires deliberately sheared...not to mention the shooting. Knowing how Mr. Tesla's tower operates, I can only suspect someone was trying to make sure it didn't...or worse."

"Mystery seems to follow you." Katharine said from inside, looking into the mirror beside our neatly made bed. "Years ago, when Agnes was courted by an older man I...I did not have the kindest words for her." She paused and set her own brush down. Time and life change one's impressions." With a deep sigh she turned to look at me through the doors. "And I wish I could take my words back. For what it matters, Elizabeth, I would tell you to follow your happiness. If he is your man, then that is what God has intended."

"Katharine, there is something…something I've not told you." I turned from the railings looking out upon the shoreline below, entering through the curtains to set the ivory upon the dresser just inside.

"Not told me?" Her brow puzzled.

"About me, and…and Mr. DeWitt."

Katharine's eyes told me that she knew the import seeking to escape my lips. "Elizabeth…" She said softly. "I think you must know…know that I have great affection for you. You can feel safe to tell me anything."

"What I told you was truth, about Columbia, the tears…everything. I would not lie about such matters. When Mr. DeWitt came for me, he had been hired, you see, by a gentleman here in New York City. _Your_ New York City."

Though still in her petticoats she'd finished her own hair, sitting at my revelation upon the side of the bed. "Then this involves these…these tears. I cannot tell you how the thought of this troubles me…that of other worlds. And in these…other worlds, are there other… _Katharines_?"

"I would suppose there are, as well as other Booker DeWitts and Elizabeth Comstocks. But you must know, it was _Robert_ _Laslowe_ who hired him. Morgan's man, the one Mr. DeWitt visited when first we met. He…hired him to bring _me_ here. _From_ Columbia."

"But _from_ Columbia…you said Columbia is not of this world. How could he know?"

"He could not. Unless he knew of tears." A hint of unease strained my voice. "At first, Mr. DeWitt…he thought I was but a job to pay his debts, until he rescued me and the riddle was laid bare. He'd brought me back here because this was his home… _our_ home. By then I must say he thankfully had no intentions of handing me over to Laslowe or anyone else. But he _had_ expected Laslowe to come calling, yet he didn't. When Booker finally visited this last Thursday, he said he'd known that I…that _we_ …would find Nikola and that matters would fall into place."

Katharine looked at me as though I were some form of otherworldly apparition. "I do not know this Robert Laslowe personally, but Niki seems to. From what I gather he is a middle man between Mr. Morgan and Nikola's enterprise for some years…instrumental in convincing Mr. Morgan to continue funding." At my subsequent reticence her eyes narrowed. "Elizabeth…what is it that you have not told me about Mr. DeWitt?"

"How could it be our fault?" I fretted, looking away and wringing my hands, attempting not to tear up yet again. "Mr. Laslowe didn't tell him, and I was a cloistered prisoner with only the knowledge one could find in books. In our seeking to escape from my supposed father, I couldn't help but notice Mr. DeWitt's…finer characteristics, and though our journey was rocky, we came to rely upon one another over the next days through many tight scrapes. I'd thought heroes to exist only in books."

"Elizabeth…I was wrong before. Age should not stop love if it is true. One should only be wise to the perils." She answered with a pat of my hand. "I've told you how I feel."

"That's…that's not it. Long after I'd found myself…attracted to him, and he me, it became apparent..."

"Go on."

I summoned the courage to look up at her. Wiped a welling tear away. "It turns out Zachary Hale Comstock was…was not my father, after all."

" _Not_ your father?" She said in puzzlement yet still holding my hand.

"No." I answered, steeling myself. "My true name…we only found out later…was _Anna._ Anna _DeWitt_."

"Mr. DeWitt. Are you in there?" Came a voice upon the veranda…one I recognized to be Bookers' friend Mr. Parson's. Katharine eyes were still welded to mine in shock and it took her a moment regain her wits. Suddenly Katharine stood and grabbed for her dress, hastening to don it over before the owner arrived.

"So sorry, but I would hate to keep Mr. Tesla waiting again." At the discovery of Katharine's half-clothed presence, he seemed embarrassed and turned away. "Oh, my most sincere apologies, Madame."

Between them I stepped, closing the doors and alighting beside him upon the windswept veranda. "None needed, Mr. Parsons." I answered. "It was negligent for us to leave the doors opened. If you'll forgive us, the morning was cool and the breeze freshening."

"Of course, and no apology is necessary. In my defense, I was under the mistaken impression Mr. DeWitt resided…"

"He does." I answered, walking up to look into the man's eyes. "But he isn't here at the moment." Behind us the doors parted and Katharine emerged, the morning sun catching the clean lines of her face in a particularly flattering manner. "That is better." She said with a winsome smile.

"Might I introduce Mrs. Katharine Johnson?" At her flirtatiousness I grinned, for Tommy Parsons was not a bad looking fellow. "She is a friend of Nikola's."

"Thomas Parsons, Mr. Tesla's security." He said formally, taking gently her hand. "I believe I saw you last year. You made a trip here, did you not?"

"You remember correctly." She answered demurely. "In Mr. DeWitt's absence I…I saw fit to escort the young lady back from the city. I shall be departing later this morning."

As usual Tesla's man was well-dressed, and I could see upon his face a distinct appreciation of the lady. "Miss Comstock..." He said, taking my hand to append a gentlemanly kiss upon its back. "You look, well...the both of you look radiant. I can hardly begin to fathom the depths of jealously you must have inspired at Morgan House. You say Mr. DeWitt has taken leave? I would surely have wished he impart that new to me…he _is_ due at Wardenclyffe within the hour."

"Mr. Parsons…" I answered. "I must confess that much to my worry I do not know of his whereabouts, nor even if he shall return."

At those words Parsons appeared deflated and answered with a sigh. "Alas, I was hoping he might be able to clear up some matters of the incident we shared a few nights ago. The Sheriff is down at Wardenclyffe as we speak and has requested an accounting from the both of us. You wouldn't by chance be able to provide some detail, would you?"

As he spoke, unconsciously I'd leant my weight to the dresser, pondering exactly how much of the fullness of our story I might be able to reveal. In that instant the cabinet moved and my mother's lacquered jewelry case began to slide. Both of their eyes widened, but before any could catch it the curio fell and smashed upon the wooden floor. Here and there trinkets spilled, rings rolling upon the boards and necklaces and bracelets clattering.

"Oh, my!" Katharine exclaimed, kneeling to secure the wreckage and broken drawers. I stood there mortified, unable to believe what had just transpired. Still in shock at the catastrophe, I sunk to my knees, the hem of my blue skirt meeting the floor as I began fruitlessly to piece the thing back together. Immediately apparent such an effort was futile, I began placing one by one earrings, necklaces, and rings into its black velvet trays. Beneath the dresser I found one of its broken drawers, beneath it the little black ceramic alongside a bundle of twine-bound, yellowed letters. Taking them in hand I stood, placed them upon the traitorous dresser top as I tucked my mummified remains into the black tray. Despite my best efforts, the jewelry box was practically destroyed.

"Do…you wouldn't know anyone who might be able…able to repair a jewelry box at Wardenclyffe, would you Mr. Parsons?" I asked in tremulous voice, eyes upon the wreckage and on the verge of tears. "It's all I…all I have of my Mother. Please…" I looked remorsefully into his eyes. "Surely there is someone there skilled in woodcraft?"

Parsons knelt to take the wrecked drawer in hand. "The cabinet is broken, yes, but surely repairable. The drawers may need more work. Luckily, Mr. Tesla employs some of the finest craftsmen in the nation. I shall get my car and head on in. Once we've spoken to the Sheriff's men, we'll see what we can do."

#

"We put out a notice with the Suffolk County Sheriff Friday night, you see." Parsons said as we shuddered to and fro down Woodville, his vehicle lurching left and right, hitting seemingly every pock mark and hole automobile and wagon had carved. Now in daylight, I could see cars of all sorts parked here and there, in particular the _Shoreham Inn_ and _Maples_ , both of which were brimming with visitors. As he dodged the traffic Mr. Parsons continued speaking, almost at a yell to be heard. "In turn they alerted all of the surrounding hospitals to be on the lookout for two men, one with a suspicious and potentially life-threatening gunshot wound."

"But you've heard nothing back?" I answered over the wind, my eyes still with the smashed jewelry box in the front seat beside him.

"No. Not until this morning when Mr. Tesla advised me to expect the Sheriff."

"Has Mr. Tesla had any problems like this before?" Katherine added from beside me in the back seat, holding her hat and hair against the wind as we slowed and turned east down the North Country Road. Ahead Tesla's tower was visible, rising like a copper-domed, matchstick Colossus above Wardenclyffe's brick-clad walls.

"No." Parsons exclaimed. "But there have been worries. Mr. Tesla, well, you must know…he does _not_ get along well with many other inventors…here in New York and abroad. Mr. Edison and Mr. Marconi come most immediately to mind. In the past he had words with Mr. Westinghouse also, but since the developments a few years back, Mr. Morgan has been keen to handle these disputes in his stead…to keep his competitors at bay. Until now, that has seemed to do the trick."

"Developments?" I asked, suspecting what he was getting at.

"Mr. Tesla's successes with beamed power and information transmission. He has been able to provide Mr. Morgan tangible _benefits_ from the Wardenclyffe project, or so I'm told."

"Do you really think it could have been _Germans_?" I asked, not precisely knowing who 'the Germans' were.

" _Germans_?" Parsons repeated. "Yes, or so Mr. DeWitt felt. Yet, so many wish Tesla to fail…my question is, who would wish so much for that failure that they'd be willing to kill, _Germans_ or otherwise?"

We arrived at Wardenclyffe's front parking lot to find a black Model T present, sides prominently emblazoned with a golden shield and the words " _Suffolk County Sheriff_ " about it. Through the front office's glazed windows I could see a pair of uniformed men in discussion with Tesla himself. Mr. Parsons came to a halt in a spot out front and shut the automobile down. After a moment I realized the gentleman was opening my door. With a little glance I smiled at him and he smiled back, offering his hand. Shortly he did the same favor for Katharine, and together we walked the sidewalk to the building, mounted the steps and entered through the open door.

"This enterprise is _important_ to Mr. Morgan!" We heard Tesla proclaim in a loud voice, not quite yelling but neither was he calm. "If Suffolk County cannot ensure our security, perhaps we might relocate to Niagara Falls once more, or even Colorado Springs, and I assure you it is not I, rather Mr. Morgan who demands this!"

"Now, now, Mr. Tesla..." A burly man in gray coat answered, a slender second standing at his side. Upon his pate the older, wider one wore an octagonal wheel cap with a dark and shiny brim...much like ones I'd seen in Columbia. A prominent gold shield like the one on the car's door adorned it its black brim. Like Columbia's uniformed constabulary, his coat was gray with gold buttons, a star upon his left breast ad brown belt and holster about his waist. A thin brown leather strap reached up and over his shoulder. "We understand the seriousness of this matter and have agreed to place a man here for the time being." At our entry, both the officers and Tesla glanced our way. "Alongside your men."

As his eyes met Katharine's, Tesla seemed unable to restrain a smile. He did his best to remain perturbed. "Well, that is a first step. Deputy Kinchloe, Deputy Harper...allow me to introduce my head of security, Mr. Thomas Parsons." Having been feted, Parsons removed his hat and extended his hand.

"A pleasure to meet you again, Deputy Kinchloe." He said. Turning to Tesla, Parsons continued. "We had the pleasure to meet once before, last year after the _last_ big storm." He offered his hand to the other man. "Thomas Parsons. A pleasure to meet you, Deputy."

"Oswald Harper." He answered. "And likewise."

Parsons looked toward Katharine. "Might I introduce the lovely Mrs. Kathrine Johnson?"

"Katharine." She said, extending her hand.

"A pleasure to…meet you, Madame." Kinchloe and Harper said, obviously appreciative of both our presence.

"And Miss Elizabeth Comstock, Mr. DeWitt's ward and my newest staff scientist."

"And you as well, young Miss."

"The pleasure is mine." I said, gently shaking their hands.

"Mister DeWitt…is not with you?" Tesla asked, by his absence knowing Booker was missing but wishing clarification as to why.

"To tell the truth, I am not certain where he is." I answered, not knowing whether I was telling the truth or lying. "I think…I think he was…perhaps he shall join us later today."

"Damn. So how is it these men, or man…" Tesla continued, looking back to the policemen. "Can be wounded, perhaps grievously, yet you find no tale of them? No visit to a hospital. No reports of dead bodies showing up?"

"Mr. Tesla," Kinchloe began. "Were I a criminal, I'd likely not be turning myself in if I could at all help it, to a hospital or otherwise. Unless the lady's chaperone..." He looked at Parsons. "Is truly _certain_ he inflicted 'grievous bodily harm,' perhaps it is possible the man escaped with only a flesh wound?"

By his look Tesla was unsatisfied. "When might you have information on the bullets?"

The deputies looked to one another. "In a day or so, but the rounds were nine-millimeter...not a particularly plentiful round here in the States."

"But plentiful in _Germany_?" I piped in. "Mr. DeWitt said he heard them speaking _German_."

"And your man's background to so authoritatively state such observations?" Kinchloe scoffed.

"About a decade in the United States Army?" I answered, remembering his stories of Wounded Knee. "Both here and overseas…in _tight_ spots."

" _German?_ " Kinchloe repeated, glancing to his partner. "There's a big difference. _Imperial_ or _Bolshevik_? Anything else he told you?" I shook my head as the man produced a notepad, scratching my second-hand words down with a shaved down wooden nub.

"No. It was dark and they were far away in our pursuit." Mr. Parsons answered. "To my shame, I was lagging behind, which was why I'd not heard them. I counted myself lucky in that regard once the shooting began. I fear that otherwise I might be dead."

"Thank Heavens, that is not the case." Kinchloe said. He looked to his scratched notes then back up. "Unfortunately, after our inspection of your North Tower this morning, that is the sum of all we have.""

Tesla's eyes turned to Katharine. "My Dear, how long shall you be staying?"

"I'd planned to leave before noon." She answered, watching for Tesla's reaction, smiling coyly as the words slipped her lips. "After I'd taken care of Elizabeth. It is a long drive back to Manhattan, but I do know the way now."

"I am still surprise you came in such a brew." Nikola answered admiringly. "Trees knocked down everywhere. A brave pair you are."

"What route were you planning to take back east, Madame?" Harper asked, by the intense furrow of his brow obviously getting at something.

"Back along the road here to Lake Ronkonkoma, via the Sayville Road, I believe?" Katharine asked, looking to me.

Harper and Kinchloe glanced at one another. "Might not be a grand idea. We've reports that east of the lake the Parkway had a lot of trees down and was closed. Sheriff Graham over in Nassau said it wasn't likely to reopen until tomorrow. I'd consider another route."

"I don't know another route." Katharine responded, unexpected concern upon her face.

"And you would be a lady alone." Tesla said. "I could have Tommy drive you back."

Katharine shook her head. "No, that is out of the question. I know you are put on her, Niki…don't go out of your way over me. I did have a gathering of some of my friends back at 327, but I could call and postpone it until later. The _Shoreham Inn_ will surely have accommodations."

"Then you'll stay? A fine idea." Tesla said with a smile. "Perhaps Katharine might join us tonight for dinner, at say the _Maples_ or _Shoreham Inn? We_ shall put in a good day's work, Elizabeth…before the festivities this evening." The two policemen rose and extended their hands. "Deputy Kinchloe, Deputy Harper…you are both welcome to attend, should the opportunity avail you. It shall be a show like no other. We could discuss the matter of security here at Wardenclyffe further?"

"Unfortunately, we have some leads to follow up out west in Wading River, but thank you for the invitation." Kinchloe answered, though by Harper's face his partner had been all to eager to accept. "Thank you for the information, Miss, and we hope your trip back to Manhattan and both pleasant and uneventful, Mrs. Johnson."

"Well, if it must be so, then thank you for coming by." Mr. Tesla said, perhaps feigning disappointment. "Tommy, could you see these fine men to the door?"

"Of course, Mr. Tesla." With the sweep of his hand, Parsons continued, attention firmly upon the officers. "Gentlemen, I'll walk you to your car."

As they departed the inventor sighed and placed his hands upon the table, head down. "I would have hoped...been certain, even, they would have something by now." He looked to me. "Until Friday, I had not been aware my men were armed. Well, at least one of them."

"Mr. DeWitt…says an unarmed man is a target." I defended. "Mr. Parsons..." He glanced to his security chief shaking hands with men in the lot as they climbed into their car. "He didn't have a weapon. If Booker hadn't been there, he truly _might_ be dead now."

"I abhor violence." Tesla answered, closing his eyes before standing upright. "But perhaps in these uncertain days your guardian has a point, Miss Comstock." He sighed, unaware of my revelation to Katharine. "After Saturday night's unveiling at Morgan's house, I am certain you realize our week's agenda to be full. Willie, Alfred and Hans are already hard at work in the laboratory. I believe we should join them there…and further discuss your ethereal qualities."

We emerged from the front office to a sky laced by clouds, clouds that cast a shade to the ground and made the sun not so brutal in the northeastern sky. With Katharine beside him we walked, passing a pair of workers who tipped their hats at our passing. Being mid-morning, Wardenclyffe was just getting underway.

"Mr. Tesla…I'm his daughter." I said quietly with a glance to Katharine. "Mr. _DeWitt's_ daughter, that is, and it is all right…Misses Johnson and I have already spoken of this matter." Despite having poked and prodded for my dark secret days before, Tesla seemed surprised.

"Perhaps not in the depth we should." Katharine added, looking to me sternly.

"His…daughter?" Tesla repeated, though not with the shock I might have expected.

Ahead the bunker loomed, and with her subtle admonition I drew a breath before continuing. "I…was taken through a tear such as your machine makes when I was an infant. I don't fully understand the reasons why, but for some reason my…captors…kept me in a tower, likely…" I looked upon my stub of a finger. "Likely because of this."

Both Katharine and Tesla examined my stub and the silver cap upon it as we continued. "The thimble?" He said, mustache twitching.

I shook my head, glancing again to Katharine. Were those eyes condemning as she heard my story the second time? "No." Self-consciously I removed the little silver bucket, letting him see the clipped nub. "I…wasn't old enough to remember, but when they took me through the tear, I lost the tip of my finger to it, or so my father says. It was left behind…and…and…" I stopped, finding it impossible to continue. "After that I was able to make tears." I pulled my arms about myself. "Not just sense them…I could… _make_ them. Make them with…with _my hands_."

"Preposterous." He said, frozen in his tracks.

"She can sense them, Nikola." Katharine heartened, taking me by the upper arm. "I've seen it come over her just the other night!"

"But it takes a machine such as the one I've built and more power than a ship's generators can provide! How is such a thing possible? I have harnessed lightning and the very power of the earth but never have I seen…"

"Perhaps for you it takes a machine and great generators…but not…" Remembering Katharine present, I held my tongue. "I ask you a question then…how am I _here_? Do you think me insane, or worse, _malign_? How could I possibly _know_ how to fix your machine if I hadn't some _greater_ understanding? You see, I had only had to envision a place, accurately, mind you, and I could open a tear to it."

"Saints preserve us." He followed, and I could see in those eyes the dawning of belief. "But…no longer?"

"No. When Mr. DeWitt brought me back here, I was reunited in this world with my severed fingertip and my talent failed. In some way that was the key…being split…one's essence caught between two realities. Booker…Mr. DeWitt…he says that was for the best that I lost my ability, for this is where we are from and should stay. It's…" I thought of his hovel of an apartment, the wall paper and how I'd cleaned it. Thought of the nights lying beside him and the sounds of the horses and automobiles.

"Do you know where he is?"

I didn't speak for a time, watching my feet instead one in front of the other. "Saturday night, at Mr. Morgan's…after your demonstration he…he accused me of helping you achieve something you couldn't have achieved on your own. Perhaps… _shouldn't_ have achieved."

His face tightened. "The orientation of the portal? And why should the world _not_ have the gift of flight?!" His exclamation caused both Katharine and me to recoil, and she inadvertently released my arm. His sudden bombast drew also the renewed attentions of the workers at the base of the tower. "You have been of great help, Miss D…" He paused and looked around. " _Comstock_. But if you think I would not have thought of our insight on my own, you are sadly mis…"

" _I_ am not saying that!" At my outburst the three of us were surprised and I endeavored to lower my voice. " _Mr. DeWitt_ did. He was _never_ supportive of this venture to begin with, for fear of precisely _this_ happening."

"Fear of what? And this…this breakthrough is why he left? Because of what we have accomplished together?"

"No." I whispered, not wishing to relieve it again. "He left because…because of what I said to him afterward."

Atop the surrounding brickwork building birds chirped, and a black iron weathervane pointed northeast beneath an oncoming ceiling of gray clouds. With the overcast the morning had remained notably cooler days past. Here and there we'd had caught men's attention and with our commotion the yard quieted. In the distance a saw continued cutting. Ignoring our sudden notoriety, Tesla continued to walk, approaching the Bunker's door ahead of us. With a flourish of hand he stepped aside and offered entry. "Dear ladies, do come in."

We headed down the concrete steps as Tesla closed the steel door. Hastening down the stairs after me, he donned a lab coat and goggles from the coat rack before offering with his free hand the same to me and Katharine. Within the center of the chamber the Tear Machine sat, unpowered but now complete.

"So, this is it?" She said, approaching its three bulbs with inquisitive eyes. "Can I touch it?"

"Yes." He said with a reassuring glance toward his men. "Katharine, when last you visited, I introduced you to Hans Johnnison and Alfred Peters. May Introduce you to Gunter Hartmann and Harvey Meyer. Gentlemen, Mrs. Katharine Johnson. You may remember Robert, her husband, from Manhattan?" One by one the scientists stopped what they were doing and approached, offering their hands. "How goes progress?"

Peters shook his head. "The machine is functional but before we attempt another run, we must reaccomplish our inspection. A great deal of power was put through what remains an essentially untested device. Still, we heard Mr. Morgan and your guests were impressed the other night."

"Yes, but a shiny new object will only hold the old man's attention for so long. With Katharine in town, I had planned upon dinner at the _Maples_ or the _Shoreham Inn_. From the looks of things…" He surveyed the components askew upon the nearby workbenches. "That might be premature. How long might this inspection take, Alfred?"

"Several hours, I'm afraid. Before we load her up again, each component must be tested." The news was not welcome to Tesla.

"It sounds like you might be awhile. Perhaps…" Katharine suggested, and in her eyes I could see gleeful anticipation. "I could arrange for dinner to be brought in, Niki?"


	16. Lutece

**16\. Lutece -** **Monday Evening, August 5th, 1912**

As Tesla and Katharine chatted my eyes followed, watching the couple from the Bunker's landing just outside the stairs as they strolled across the still drying concrete of the yard. Though they were beyond the tower I could hear them once and awhile, an easy laughter. With his arm about hers they looked happy together and oddly youthful. For a moment my thoughts turned to her husband, Robert, gray and tired back in Manhattan, all alone on Lexington Street, wondering what he would think. Deciding I had enough sin upon my own countenance, I headed soberly back into the bunker, jacket flaring white over skirt as I joined Alfred and his friends downstairs. They were busy as I arrived, engrossed in the latter stages of the tear machine's deconstruction.

"Have a nice break?" Meyer asked from beneath the device's right brace, inspecting with a lamp a capacitor bank with many wires hanging from it.

"My apologies." I answered, thoughts still upon Booker. "I hadn't realized I'd been missed."

"Every hand is missed, Miss Comstock, when we are in such a crunch for time." Peters shot back. "Mr. Tesla is paying us enough. Perhaps you should put in some work?" Chastened, I stepped to the workbench and my seat, where one by one I began hooking up wires to verify continuity in the dome's circuits. How I knew to do this perplexed me, but it seemed I'd done it so many times before, despite the fact that I never had.

"I realize that Mr. Morgan is a task master, but I have yet to see the rush in things here. Why again was it necessary to pull the machine apart when from what I could tell, it was in a fine state?"

"Pull apart? This is hardly 'pulling it apart.' As I told Mr. Tesla, this inspection is to identify any damage done by Saturday night's escapade." Peters answered, wrapping a stay about a bundle of red and black wires. "From the way I heard it, it was _you_ who encouraged Tesla to push the machine so hard. You should have been here instead of dancing the night away with New York society. Its interaction with the tower nearly destroyed it."

"I…I don't understand." I said, pausing from my barely commenced work and stung by the men's invective. "I suggested no such thing, only to reorient the portal such that any emanant force might be redirected."

"Is that so?" Johnnison answered, voltmeter in hand. "And how do you suppose that the test article was given flight? From those tiny motors?"

"Then the coupling must have been Nikola's insight." Meyer responded from his workbench, casting a caustic eye toward the dark-haired man.

"What _coupling_?" I asked in frustration. What are you talking about?"

As he spoke Alfie Peters' brow furrowed, glancing to me as he knelt to install that bundle of wires. "My Dear…once generated, it seems as though Nikola has found a way to steer the tear using the transmission towers, both here and at Macrahainish…quite independent of the coordinates input into the targeting window."

I stared at him. "But…what is the benefit of that over the coordinates?"

"It allows the machine's tear to be ensnared electromagnetically…to be moved in real time instead of a specific and fixed target. That is how he was able to levitate the model zeppelin model from such distance. And tonight we _must_ be ready for the next series of tests…perhaps the grandest ever attempted."

" _Grandest ever attempted_? I asked, having never thought of _steering_ a tear. "What…what does he wish to do?"

"He wishes to see how fast the tear can oscillate from location to location."

"Oscillate? To what advantage?"

Peters and Meyer smiled. Johnisson actually chuckled. Having been bewildered by me for the last week, I could see in their eyes the glee of knowing something I didn't. "If we can achieve a 60 Hertz blink rate, Hans and I believe we can transmit lossless power to any common device on the other end quite independent of transmissive fallibilities. And dependent upon the rate of oscillation achieved the devices powered would scale by a factor of 1 to 60."

"Multiplexing…without going through…." I whispered.

"The earth." Aflie completed. "Or wires. In fact without, as far as I can tell, going through anywhere." I absorbed the implications, Booker's misgivings coming back to me with a vengeance. Now that Tesla had been given the key, this would not simply end with airships flying. He could steer tears at a whim…would he make the leap that he could steer them _anywhere_? For hours afterward I worked in troubled silence, every now and then exchanging a nervous glance with Alfie.

Despite the lingering clouds it was a pretty day outside, a cool day, perfect for walking amongst the trees, perfect for stumbling over branches and perfect for shared laughter. I daydreamed of strolling the beach, barefoot, feeling the sand and pebbles beneath foot, turning to look into the man's eyes who I realized was the meaning of everything. Instead I'd spent it here with three curmudgeons who I was quite certain disliked me. Disconnecting cables and running current into the neck of the machine, I realized that for all of my work, it was a day of my life wasted, and that I was just as alone as I had ever been on Monument Island.

Having assuaged any accusations of malingering yet still feeling despondent, as dusk approached I excused myself anew and headed up into the tower yard to take a break, to listen to the evening birds and see the pinks and blues over the western trees and fields as I had with Booker in days past…in those unbounded days in Yaphank and when we'd first arrived at Shoreham. I found the yard busy now. As in all but the weekends, Wardenclyffe ran on its own clock and nightfall heralded its peak of activity. "Miss Comstock?" I heard from down the walkway and turned to see Thomas Parsons approaching, dressed dapper in that beige suit and tie. At my presence he tipped his hat, ever the proper gentleman. "Aside from the unpleasantness this morning, I trust the evening finds your loveliness well?"

"Rather well, Mr. Parsons. I hope the same for you." I answered with a flattered smile. He was a handsome man and I couldn't help but enjoy such attentions. Still, having been in a tower for all but the last few weeks of my life, small talk was not my forte, particularly with men I found attractive. I didn't know what he wished but decided to ease gently into whatever matter he was pursuing. "Did…I hear correctly that you had a family?"

"I do and thank you for asking. In fact, family was what I'd meant to ask you about, if you get my meaning."

I stared at him blankly for a good minute, I am certain, or rather it seemed that long, until I realized that perhaps I had not been the only one to confide in another their familial relations. "Mr. DeWitt?"

"Yes." He answered, apprehending me gently by the arm as we began to walk back to the main building. "Are you hard pressed in your technical matters with Alfie's boys? I do not wish to detain you."

"I can spare a moment or two." I replied, curious as to his intentions but more so if he'd heard anything of Booker.

"I am expecting Mr. DeWitt's absence was unexpected? He did not seem like a man to shirk his duties."

I lowered my head. "It was my fault. We had words and I…I inadvertently insulted him. I didn't think it so grave at the time, but he left the ball the other night at Mr. Morgan's House and I've not seen him since. I'm so worried."

"For?"

"That he might not come back."

Midway between buildings he stopped us, turning me to meet sympathetic eyes. "Forgive me for asking a deeply personal question, Elizabeth…but it might be of importance to finding him. Are the two of you… _married_?"

My eyes turned upward, fraught with sudden intensity…and embarrassment. " _Married_? N…no."

"I could not help but notice, in your words and actions, your…fondness…for the man. The way in which you look at him at times…it reminds me of my Carol."

"We cannot always help the one we love, can we?" I answered, unable to look away even as I realized I'd teared up. With my blouse's cuff I staunched the blubber, my hands coming together upon my chest. "But if you mean to ask further if I _love_ him…" I sighed. "Yes, I do. I'm so worried, Mr. Parsons. I can't bear the thought of losing him."

"That…is a pity." He answered, though by the aggrieved look upon his face I could not help but think his words held a meaning I'd missed. "That you are so distressed, I mean."

"You…don't think that you might be able to find him, do you?" I asked, taking his hands with hopeful eyes.

"Unfortunately, I have heard nothing from my inquiries in the county, at least as of yet. I shall make a call to the New York City Police Department. It is possible that since he disappeared there, that is where we shall find your answer. If there is anything to which they avail me, I shall alert you posthaste."

"Thank you." I answered, any fear of Booker being incriminated now lost with the worry of passing days.

Again he offered me that a pitying look before his demeanor stiffened. "I…shall make my rounds now to the guardhouse and North Tower, before nightfall." In his pocket I could see a bulge.

"Is that…new?"

My eyes met his and he smiled. "Yes. Indeed it is, Miss Comstock. Perhaps it is not often, but an old dog _can_ occasionally learn a new trick."

At the main house the door from the Oersted Cafeteria opened and Nikola emerged, brow furrowed and deep in thought as he pressed our way. Noticing my distraction, Mr. Parsons turned. "There is the man now…minus his companionship. Good evening, Sir. Might I ask the whereabouts of Misses Johnson?"

Tesla came to a stop and clicked his heels together, offering me a slight bow. "Miss Comstock." He said with a smile. He straightened and turned to Parsons. "Why, she is in the office now, on the telephone with the Shoreham Inn inquiring about out dinner arrangements. Tonight is set to be spectacular, and felt a need to celebrate our imminent success. The only matter is the acquisition of said victuals. Would you mind driving her, Thomas? Her automobile is at Hapgood's, and together the two of you can bring whatever is in the offing."

"Drive her? To the Shoreham Inn?"

"Indeed." Tesla's orders came across like a request, but the intent was clear. Mr. Parsons tipped his hat. "It might delay my rounds an hour or so, but certainly. If you'll excuse me." As he walked Tesla's eyes followed.

"A good man, Thomas. Rather religious and tight, but upon occasion so am I." His eyes turned back to me and for a moment he hesitated. Across the yard I heard a worker yell and a heavy beam clamor to the concrete apron beneath crane. For a moment it drew his attention too. "You know, Elizabeth, you have been a mystery to me since the day you arrived…particularly since your revelation the other day as to your origin." He glanced to my finger. "This place you claim to come from...if your experience there was so abominable...why would you wish to revisit it?"

Following my misgivings with Mr. Parsons, I had not been prepared for such a troubling question. "Just because some people are bad doesn't make _all_ people bad, nor a _place_ bad. It is true I grew up locked away, but..." I answered, rubbing my digit. "Columbia was…beautiful. Fascinating. Perhaps it's _promise_ was, really, because, you see, I never really _knew_ it. And Columbia wasn't the _only_ place I wanted to visit. I've always been fond of Paris."

"Paris, as in _France_?" He asked, thumb tip rising upon elbow to lower lip.

"Yes, the Eiffel Tower, le Champs-Élysées, Notre Dame and the Seine! You see, I _grew up_ making tears." I turned to him and took his hands, seeing his surprise. "If you...if you could paint, and paint well...could you ever truly stop?" Realizing in an instant a better tack, I continued. "Or...or could you ever give up _thinking_? Conceiving of...of new things and bringing them to life?!"

"No. That would be impossible."

I turned away and spoke, seeing the sunset lining the diminished clouds in orange and pink. "I told you I could make tears, and with them I used to be able to peer into other worlds, to...to _see_ things that might be. But that was not all. I used to visit them…used them to _explore_ whenever I wanted. At least as far as my fear of getting back home would allow me…which wasn't far. So, even though I was alone in my lofty prison I wasn't truly, _completely_ alone…at least not all of the time. I used to be so fr...it was like _breathing_ to me, ever since I was a little girl." I glanced to my woeful little finger, so stunted and sad. "As I said, I lost that ability...lost it like I lost my finger when Mr. DeWitt…brought me here. Please don't mistake my intention…" My eyes turned earnestly back to his. "But if there were a way, even through a machine, that I could see and visit those worlds again..."

"Go there." He stated more than asked.

"Yes. Go there. I would…just…just to visit, of course."

"Elizabeth, we of a kindred spirit in this matter. Please have _confidence_ that I shall tell no one. I must assume, however, that your Father _knows_ of this? Otherwise you would not be here?"

"I've told him some…but he could never truly understand the pain…the loss I felt." Again I looked at my finger. "You said there was something else?"

"At one point I heard you express interest in the device on the machine's side, the viewing apparatus. Now that you know the Tear Machine's genesis, I suppose I might reveal a little more."

"It's a targeting system, isn't it?"

"Why do you suspect that?"

"My own deduction. Besides, Mr. Peters inadvertently confirmed the matter, particularly the prospect that you have transcended such needs. As for my deduction, it was from the coordinates in the window…they were for my Father's apartment in New York. _Your_ machine sent him to me. I had wondered before today how it could possibly have reached out from here, but now I know." I stopped talking and glanced about the perimeter…to the towers "I only ask why? _Why_ did you send him to me? And how even could you know who he was?"

At my verbal barrage he was genuinely surprised. "Send him to you? Mr. DeWitt? No, no…I assure that you are mistaken, my child. I did _not_ send your father to you nor any other…how could I?! Until our discussion the other night, I had no inkling that even I could reorient the portal let alone steer it with my masts!"

"But you must have!" I exclaimed softly. " _Someone_ used this machine to reach into Booker's apartment. You'd mentioned the place lit up on the Fourth!"

"Now this begins to make sense." He added. "That night…and with all the staff at home with their families." Tesla pursed his lips and turned to the tower. "Or so Thomas says. Still, it could not have been anyone but the men who work here. As I have said, no one in the entire world is aware of this invention and its capabilities. This…this is another reason we are here alone."

"But...but how could it reach out and take him from the Bowery to _there_? Wouldn't the tear have brought him, well…here?"

"By 'there' I assume you mean this...this…flying city."

" _Columbia._ " I answered.

" _Columbia_." He said with a sigh, deconstructing the word as he gazed absently toward the stone wall. " _Flying_ city." He turned to look north, and as he did, I wondered if he were seeing my old home floating out there above the tree line. "The tower out there, the new one under construction and, apparently, sabotage at Shoreham beach. The prototype at Macrahainish...the application is different but the principle the _same_ as the tear machine...the generation of enormous electrostatic differential over a small span. Such is how a tear is produced. Here we do it in a frame, a window. When properly pulsed I can 'capture' the tear instigated _here_ and shift it to any desired location in the world…under the condition that my constellation of towers is fully functional to guide it. Of course, it is not. Seeing as the Bowery is close enough, it makes sense that this might have occurred through our prototype tower here…only…"

"Only what?" I asked, anxious suddenly to hear his answer.

"I am uncertain how a needle might be found in a haystack. To route to this destination of yours, this… _Columbia_ …one would have to have _known_ the aetheric vibration of that destination in order to tune to it. As I have found, one can search the aether forever and find little of interest but the infinities of space and antics of cats. The target destination is put in _first,_ you see, not only by coordinates but by the tuning the resonance and phase of the machine. Only then, once the tear is established, do we engage the magnification towers to shift the mouth to second set of coordinates input into the window…the origin."

"So, as you said, one of your men..." I reiterated, thinking of Booker's revelation from Laslowe. "If not you, one of your men here would have had to have done it. To have...somehow known the destination. But…but this, for _you_?" I asked. "I mean, I know why, for _me_ , but why have _you_ indulged in such an effort that has obviously spanned _decades_ in the first place?" I approached him and looked up, seeing the pain upon his face. "You cannot be doing this entirely for Morgan."

"I am not doing it for Morgan. The transmission of power, yes, but this…this has never been for Morgan. I am doing it for _her_."

"Katharine?" Looking about to find no one present, I nevertheless lowered my voice. "I know your love for her is honorable, Mr. Tesla. As you must suspect, I have a skeleton or two in my closet also. I…I am not one to judge."

"No, Elizabeth. Much as I do…care…for her, this is not for Katharine. This is for _Rosalind_."

"Ros…Rosalind?" The name rang in my head like a bell.

"Yes." Looking toward a nearby bench, he offered me a seat. It being so enticingly refreshing outside and, sensing romantic revelation, I accepted. Tesla's eyes were wistful as he began to speak. "You see, I had been in the early stages of planning for the 1893 Word's Exposition. Both the cartels competing to back it, those of Chicago and New York, both had greatly desired something to showcase America's growing prowess on the world stage. I had only the first of my successes at that time, both in the transmission of power and Niagara. The Chicago Cartel was interested in me in the wake of my engineering of the first brushless motors. As likely you do not remember, electrical power was still the novelty back then and the Chicago men wished to illuminate the entire fair. I had recently engineered my Alternating Current dynamos and begun the electrification of New York. It was they who contacted me."

"Initially I had been preparing a modest exhibition concerning the potential of beamed electricity _instead_ , an array of lights I intended to illuminate from afar. Similar to Wardenclyffe, I constructed a trio of Lilliputian towers in my laboratory on Hudson Street, and on one evening, the 14th of October, I began to receive a faint but distinct signal via an oscillation in the point field intensity, resulting in my lights dimming and brightening at oddly regular intervals. As I pursued and tuned my prototype, I came to realize that someone or _something_ else was _altering_ the field, alterations that soon I recognized to be Morse code. By varying my own voltage I was able to communicate in Morse with the sender, who turned out, beyond all imagination, a young lady by the name of _Rosalind Lutece_. At that moment I thought that history had been made, that somehow I had achieved the dream of wireless transmission in coincidence with another, a _woman_ no less, somewhere else upon this globe. Imagine to my surprise when I discovered that not only was I wrong, but _how_ wrong I was."

" _Wrong_?"

His eyes turned to mine, for he had been looking at the ground at a white pigeon strutting at his feet. "In code we began excitedly to compare notes, on first our experiments and later ourselves. It soon became apparent that _Rosalind_ was from a world much like mine, but in truth another place _entirely_. Her experiments in high voltage power differentials had opened a microscopic tear…and now I know that my towers…my masts…had captured it. Of course, I feared that perhaps I'd gone mad."

"That's how you knew."

"Indeed. Soon Morse code gave way to modulated voice. Together then we expanded in concert the capabilities of our machines, eventually creating a visible but small tear we could see one another through...a small window across the 'divide.' That window later evolved, becoming a form of the machine we have experienced so much acrimony over."

Again, he sighed. "Rosalind was…an _odd_ girl, as devoted to her researches as I. I found her reserved, though far prettier and intelligent than she gave herself credit for. Perhaps she was afraid of what her presence might unleash in men, for she affected at times a severe composure and was reticent to allow her feelings to show. But there was one time, shortly before the accident, that we were in a celebratory mood over our mutual successes, me with Colorado Springs and she with her cells and construction of this..." He looked through the windows of the Bunker. "Contraption. Over a glass of champagne or four, we met at the tear interface and exchanged an unplanned kiss. It was shocking to the both of us that that was even possible, but more so her, I suspect. Afterward she let down her hair and confided in me the sadness of her childhood, the coldness of her parents. How her restless mind had refused to sleep and how unrelenting her…loneliness had been." Tesla smiled at me. "Her hair was like the color of the sun setting on a warm summer day, her eyes blue..." He looked into my eyes. "Like yours." His gaze soured and he turned away.

"You loved her?" I whispered, wondering if my captor and I had actually been birds of the same feather.

Tesla had closed his saddened eyes. "I did, as one can only love a kindred mind, but it was not to be. Within days of that kiss we realized that it was not only communication possible between worlds, but the actual movement of _matter_. Through our shared device she gave me her bound textbook and expounded on her theories. She was young and reserved, yet as we grew closer she turned out to be a woman with so much excitement. Unfortunately, in her world, no one would publish her book nor even take her work seriously. She thought, and I am inclined to believe the truth in her suspicions, that her shunning was because she was a woman. This preyed upon her mind, until one days she reported excitedly that she had managed to make the acquaintance of an influential religious authority who held the ear of her world's "Chicago Cartel." Like me, they had been planning in competition with New York an event for the upcoming Chicago World's Exposition. In concert with her new backer, she concocted a plan to create a stir _no one would ever forget_."

"You see, following our successful experiments between pairs of small tear machines, she had become convinced that she had discovered a way to 'bottle' these 'tears' in a manner that would effectively, of all things, produce lift. Using _my_ electrostatic field arrays. I…I am ashamed to admit that I could barely fathom the theory behind these breaches then, let alone how one might use them to levitate objects. That is, until you, my dear Elizabeth, provided our eureka moment." He was smiling at me. I listened in numb silence.

"Ahem. Boldly Lutece suggested that a great slab of Silurian bedrock beneath the west shore of Lake Michigan might be _lifted whole_ , creating a city…" He paused, blue eyes piercing me. "A city in the sky. After several small-scale demonstrations, her Chicago people were elated and backed her completely."

"Then, you know about Columbia? Rather, knew of it?"

"She never mentioned it by name but I saw her drawings. Much as I was enamored of her, I considered the idea, well, implausible.

But you are trying to say that Rosalind Lutece…she is _my_ Rosalind Lutece?!"

" _Your_ Rosalind Lutece?" He said, now puzzled.

I closed my eyes, not remembering the woman as being particularly personable. Still, she had been there more than any other in my life, a mother if ever I'd had one. "Yes. There are many things I've not told you, Mr. Tesla, but in my…my tower…my prison…Rosalind Lutece was the chief scientist _studying_ me. I was…" I sighed, despising the term and very thought. "Her specimen. Her _prisoner_."

"That…that is terrible, my dear. And I am afraid entirely impossible."

"Impossible?" I said, completely incensed. "You would do well not to tell me what is impossible! I can assure you, I lived it!"

At my ferocity he seemed taken aback. "Many pardons, Miss…Comstock. I had not meant to diminish any tribulations you have experienced. But it _was_ impossible."

"You only just told me it was Rosalind Lutece!"

"You see…" He insisted, a pained look coming over his brow. His eyes closed. "Not many days later, whilst laboring on her brainchild on the other side of that iridescent divide, she…she perished in some manner of explosion. The tear collapsed, but oddly…" He stopped, pain upon his face. "I was left with the charred husk of her metallic contraption. From the force of that detonation I was myself nearly killed. Though the device was destroyed, even in its sad predicament her intricacies far exceeded those with which I had fabricated my own crude device. For days I could barely eat and sleep, for she had been like an addiction to me. My Muse. Where I had heard her sweet, insightful voice calling me to leaps of brilliance, now I heard only silence. In time my physical wounds healed, the mental ones grew over about the edges. I learned to live with it, to smile again. To have told anyone the story, and I have told _no one_ , would have gotten me committed. I think the only thing that truly brought me back was Katharine.

"K…Katharine?" I said, treading once more upon uncertain ground.

"Yes. We met at a party, one of Robert's…a grand "Johnson blowout," as she likes to call them. I became one of their acquaintances and then friends. In time we were inseparable. I have always said that an inventor does not have time for love nor women, for his mind must remain focused upon the mysteries he is yet to solve." He sighed. "In her, I found those words lacking."

"She loves you, you know." I said, my heart pining for them. "I hear the way she talks about you…see how her eyes light up when your name is mentioned."

"And I love _her_." He said with a sigh. But I _also_ love Robert, who is perhaps the best friend I have in this world. Like a brother to me. I would… _could…_ never have done anything that might have allowed harm to come to them, nor Agnes or Owen, whom I have loved like my own children. I would not harm all that they have built."

"Have…have you ever told her about…Rosalind?" I asked, eyes turning up to his. It was dark overhead now with a line of blue arching across the first stars of the sky. Announcements blared out with increasing frequency across the loudspeakers. Scurrying across the apron, men were positioning themselves for the evening.

"How could I? There are things about me that even Katharine, bless her soul, would not have believed. So many have called me crazy. Worse yet, she might have been _jealous_ of an old flame. But the machine…I have kept it with me all of these years, cleaning it up, replacing its parts where understanding availed me…thinking that someday I might unravel its mysteries and in doing so regain a part of her. I had even thought, at times, that it might be able to be used as a time machine of sorts. I had never dreamed it would tie one day into so many of my own plans and dreams."

"What…what made you start working on it again?"

"A man…Morgan's man. He approached me with a proposal toward envisioning the future. Seeing as Morgan was my lifeline to success, I could hardly turn him down. I agreed to work upon some ideas, realizing that Rosalind's machine was perhaps the only possible viability toward achieving his needs. In return for the construction of a handful of small prototypes, Laslowe supplied me with drawings to patch the holes in my…Rosalind's design."

" _Laslowe_?" I felt the blood drain from my face. " _Robert_ …Laslowe?"

"Of Electrical Holdings, Incorporated…Telsa RC's holding company. He is the President, with an office in lower Manhattan." As he spoke his brow furrowed in worry. "Elizabeth, are you quite all right?"

Realizing I was suddenly chill, I clasped my arms about myself and turned back to him. "Mr. Tesla, has anything else… _unusual_ happened over the last years?"

#

"If it weren't for the fire marshals showing up that morning, Fifth Street might have burned to the ground." Tesla finished saying as he paced beside the machine. "In those days I'd not learned the sense of keeping separate copies of my notes and records, or perhaps I was too poor to employ a scribe." He laughed but in a serious way. "Either way, if the fire had continued, I would have lost everything. Who knows where I would be now?"

"If not you, who alerted them? I dug as a commotion picked up outside. In the distance I heard the honking of a horn. In the hour that had passed since Tesla had begun his tale, my distress had only grown. How could I have been so dim witted?

"That…I have never discovered, though I _have_ inquired. I suppose it was a neighbor or perhaps a good Samaritan. Whoever it was, I owe them greatly." At the sound Tesla turned from his men toward the noise. "My friends, I do believe dinner has arrived."

As he went to surmount the concrete stair we heard a hasty pad of feet outside the door, followed by a frenzied knock upon metal. "Mr. Tesla, Mr. Tesla!" Cried a younger man's voice. "He's here!"

"Yes, yes…I know, Willie. Thomas said he'd return after fetching dinner with Mrs. John…"

"No…no!" The man said. At the top of the stairs Tesla opened the door to the face of the young gate guard Booker and I had met our first day at Wardenclyffe. Though night had fallen, I could see the man red and winded, his hair disheveled. "It's not Mr. Parsons, it's _Mr. Morgan_!"

Tesla's face blanched. Now it was his turn to have seen the ghost. "Mr…Morgan? _J.P._ Morgan?"

"Yes!" The watchman said, nervously adjusting hat and tie. "I could never mistake him. He is here along with Mr. Laslowe and another gentleman I didn't recognize. They're in the office building even as we speak!"

"In the office building? What do they wa…why are they here?"

"Mr. Laslowe…he said they were here to view firsthand tonight's demonstration." At the back of the room someone dropped a sheaf of paper, the rustle of its pages hitting the concrete floor the only sound in the chamber.

Visibly I saw Tesla swallow before adjusting his tie. "Then I suppose they will be expecting my presence. He turned to us with a pursed smile. "Alfred, Hans, Gunter…please ensure that the machine is powered and waiting commencement of coupling within the next thirty minutes. Miss Comstock…" He continued, looking down my way. "You should clean up. You are coming with me."

Amidst a barely heard grumbling and the weight of my co-worker's eyes I removed my gloves, jacket and goggles, hanging them upon the coatrack at the base of the stairs to follow my employer up and out. We crossed the yard in quiet haste, Nikola exchanging with me a calm but decidedly nervous glance. At my core I'd no doubt the machine would work and tried subtly to give him that reassurance.

We entered the office building through the back door and the control room, a room festooned with arrays of dials and meters…dizzying to behold. There several technicians poured over the instrumentation, making last minute adjustments as others ran wiring beneath new gauges and machines. When at last we entered the conference room, Laslowe, Astor, Morgan a handful of others were there alongside a wide spread of food. Ever in her element, an ebullient Katharine Johnson was chatting them up.

"So, how do you _expect_ I felt when I saw him? It's not everyday that one of your friends comes home a war hero! Robert and I are just common, everyday people, not accustomed to dining with celebrities, and there Richmond was, bedecked with medals… Oh, and here they are now!" She said, turning with hands clasped to acknowledge our entrance. "Niki, look who has come to visit!?"

Tesla's smile could not have been more strained. "Mr. Morgan, Mr. Astor." He said, offering his hand to the men. "How pleasantly unexpected of you to join us this evening."

"Nikola…the pleasure, I assure you, is ours." The elder Morgan said, eyes gleaming like blowtorches. Whereas Mr. Tesla's smile could have been painted, one would have had to search long and hard to find any such effort upon the tycoon's visage.

"Might I ask what the occasion is for your welcome attention? Tonight is but an ordinary evening here at the laboratory, although we do hope to make progress."

"After this weekend's…stunning…revelation, John and I were eager to see how exactly you accomplished such consecutive miracles. And what better way than to visit you in your laboratory that we have so beneficently funded, to watch the master at action."

"Indeed." Astor added, pouring himself a glass of champagne. "In all my life I do not believe I have ever seen something so splendid and beyond belief as the demonstration of flight you presented…and, in fact, I do recall motors of similar, larger manufacture employed aboard Titanic and its sister ships. Or was I mistaken?"

"You were not." Tesla answered. "We have produced a few prototypes for testing. It just so happened that by greatest chance you were on board one of those flights so outfitted."

"Much to my eternal gratitude." Astor continued. "We were under the assumption that tonight might evince similar spectacle?" Beside Morgan and Astor, Laslowe remained silent, taking perhaps his cues from his employer. As the wealth spoke my narrowing eyes met his, and not in a good way.

Tesla took in a breath. "Unfortunately, we are still an hour or so from so said spectacle. Our agenda for this evening consists of the message traffic to Scotland and receipt of the same, followed by our next series of power transmissions, to Olympic this evening, I believe. Assuming they go as planned, and I've no reason to doubt they shall, we shall attempt to generate a shear with the night's remaining hour of time and budgeted power…and, perhaps, rotate it."

"And this 'shearing' you talk of, this is the method by which you are generating the principal of lift?" Astor asked, genuinely interested, almost entranced.

"Indeed."

An unwieldy ebb in the conversation ensued, borne of Morgan's stiffness. Sensing ill-ease, Katharine tittered and clasped her hands before herself, bright eyes and smile gaining the room's attention. "Gentlemen, since it is to be a few minutes before the fireworks begin, perhaps I might interest you in a bite to eat? We had been preparing to celebrate the night even before your arrival, and though I'm certain it does not compare to the fare you are accustomed to, you are more than welcome to dine with us!"

Morgan and Laslowe exchanged a glance even as Astor nodded in appreciation. "My Dear Mrs. Johnson, I am certain your selection is splendid, and we should very much enjoy accompanying you."

"And how is our little Songbird, this evening?" Astor asked quietly at my side as Morgan and Tesla traded quiet words in the corner. I could not help but be aware of Laslowe's eyes upon us, cold and blue in the corner.

"The evening finds her well." I answered with a demure smile, preparing myself a plate of pink prime rib and sautéed yellow potatoes. At its side I spooned a dollop of horseradish sauce. "Thank you for asking. I take it that tonight is a "men's" function?"

"A last-minute decision, set about at Pierpont's request." Astor answered. He finished his glass. "Had she known this to be a social gathering, Madeline would have much enjoyed being here."

"You don't trust Mr. Tesla, do you?" I answered, hushed such that only he might hear.

Astor was a gentleman about what might have been viewed as an impolite assertion. "Trust…trust is a matter of continued results. Nikola has indeed delivered miracles in the past, such that none doubt his intellect nor skills at engineering. However, extraordinary assertions…"

"Require extraordinary proof." I answered with a smile, glancing toward the rise of Katharine's laughter as she lightened the discussion about the table. "And you do not believe what you saw at Mr. Morgan's house the other night."

"On the contrary, Miss Comstock…I most certainly do. It is _Mr. Morgan_ who believes that flim-flammery might be in progress. How is it, might I ask, that a woman, particularly such a splendid example as yourself, comes to work at this pinnacle of human advancement? With that song the other night…as lovely as they come, I must say…I should think you might be on Broadway."

"Thank you for your compliment." I answered, feeling again that oddly dubious sensation of an insulting brick wrapped in velvet. "I know what you must think, about Nikola, but I assure you that I have first-hand experience with the science he is exploring." As I spoke one of Tesla's workers offered me a glass of champagne upon a tray. Taking it in hand, it served only to remind me of the hobbled little finger clasped about it.

"How is that possible, when neither I nor Pierpont nor even J.P. Junior have even heard of such a thing? Where are you from? What place is this that women are on equal with men, where…"

"I can assure you, it is _no_ place, Mr. Astor. _None_ …. None, at least, that you have heard of. But as we shall show you tonight, the prowess that Mister Tesla demonstrated the other night is no mirage."

We chatted for several minutes afterward, me picking at the food and deftly sidestepping all weirdness about places called "Columbia." After a time, Katharine lassoed Astor back into her conversation with Tesla and Morgan and I began to feel like a wall ornament. Remembering my three compatriots back in the Bunker, I prepared plates, covered each with wax paper and excused myself across the yard.

I didn't like being thought of poorly, nor did I like being ignored, by billionaires or otherwise. As I walked alone I remembered his smile and how he held me. Since our foggy return from Columbia, we'd been nearly inseparable. I arrived at the Bunker mired in self-loathing, hearing the not-so-hushed invectives about men hard at work and women hard at play. My arrival silenced that matter, along with the researchers' realization that I'd not only brought myself but food fit for a King's feast. Having made matters right, I took the rest of my meal with Alfie's friends.

"I suppose its time." Hans Johnisson said after placing his decimated plate upon a bench next to the stairs.

"Time for what?" I asked.

Alfred glanced upward. "To open the doors and power up. We've not had to use the ceiling doors since Nikola brought the device here to Wardenclyffe, but with the power we've been feeding into the machine the last few nights and the field coupling, the ionization has been intense. Surely you've noticed the ozone smell, that of burnt air?"

"It did smell rather odd this morning."

"Well, Hans suggested we open them for future operations. Last night it made all the difference. Mr. Johnnison, if you could do the honors?" Peters asked. With the remains of dinner set aside, Johnnison stepped to a gray power box upon the concrete bunker wall, one adorned with a large, black handle. Casually he threw it. In the walls there resounded a clunk and a grinding sound. Overhead twin steel doors began to open, revealing a swath of stars.

"Oh!" I said, looking upward and turning about beneath the open sky. "I wasn't aware the Bunker even had doors."

"How do you think Nikola got the machine in here in the first place?" Meyer answered.

By now the men had quit dinner and returned to their checks, leaving me to pick up after them. Satisfied with his progress, Alfred went to the control console and threw a cascade of switches. With a thump the machine jolted to life, its subtle hum and emanation of static electricity filling the room. Realizing things were about to get started, I took the worked-over plates in hand and hastened up the steps. "I'm going to get these out of the way and tell Mister Tesla we're up and running. I'll be back in a moment."

As I hastened across the court I decided to get rid of the dishes first, making a beeline to the darkened cafeteria. Before I opened the door I spied through the arched window a shadowy figure within. With all the men and scientists in the control room as the evening's commencement approached, I found this unusual. Soon I saw him fetching some bottles of either wine or champagne from the ice box, only to produce a black bottle from inside the pocket of his coat…one with the unusual stopper Katharine and I had seen in Morgan's study. Into the sink he poured some of the wine, exchanging about a quarter of it with the fluid from the black bottle before setting it in a silver sconce of crushed ice. Without dallying he left for the main offices. As the door closed behind him, I entered.

From where he'd produced the liquor I found that strangest of bottles, half full. Emerging from the Oersted Café puzzled, I wondering who the burglar of booze could have been as I walked down the hall. To my sides the light fixtures cast a steady light, and as I entered the conference room I found Astor and Morgan chatting and Laslowe monitoring. At my arrival the men looked my way, Astor smiling and Morgan not, sipping from tumblers some brown concoction…whiskey, I supposed, as men were wont to do. At me Laslowe offered the coolest smile. I was but a minor stir, and as an impatient Morgan consulted his pocket watch, I turned to exit as fast as I'd entered.

"How soon will the demonstration begin, Miss Comstock?" Came from behind. I stopped dead in my tracks, turning reluctantly to my addressor.

"I believe soon, Mr. Laslowe. I…was looking for Mister Tesla as we speak. Preparations are complete in the Bunker and I had thought to find him here."

"He left but a moment ago in the company of Mrs. Johnson." The orange haired man answered, eyes cold as ice. "He had glasses and a bottle of wine in hand. I fancy for a drink."

My mind stuttered… _glasses and bottle_? "Th…thank you, Mister Laslowe. I think." At my response the conversation again quieted, and all eyes rose to meet mine.

"Miss Comstock…is something the matter?" Astor queried. At the back of the room three men dressed in suits, men whom I'd _not_ been introduced to, looked to me with stern eyes. Why could I not get it out of my mind that _everything_ was the matter?

"No…I'm…I'm quite all right. I'll fetch Mister Tesla and hopefully we shall begin."

With heart suddenly pounding, my boot heels resounded down the hall, anxiously looking into darkened rooms until finally through a window I saw Nikola dallying with Katharine in the lights out front. I stepped out through the entrance doors to find them sitting upon the stone railing of the fence together, Katharine's knees together. He'd been pouring her glass anew, whispering a hushed toast before entwining his wrist with hers. "To long and happy years." He said. "However tonight might turn out." With mutual smiles the two drank.

My eyes were fixed…at least until my finger jolted and I gasped. Unlike the distant static electricity I'd felt before, this one _hurt_. About me time seemed frozen. Into the couple before me I saw an ephemeral vapor trail, man and woman caught out of time and space. And then it was over, but still my finger stung. "Ahhh!" I shouted, shaking my hand out and glaring at my offending appendage.

"Elizabeth!" Katharine answered to the crash of her glass upon the brick. "What…what are you doing here?" Realizing I was in pain, her face softened from dismay to grievous concern. "Are…are you all right!?"

"My…my finger." I said, still attempting to draw breath. "I came looking for Mister Tesla, to tell him that all is ready in the Bunker but I just felt the most egregious…egregious…" About me the world began to swirl and I stumbled.

I felt strong hands catch my arms and chest…rolled over dreamily to find blue eyes looking into mine. I had the sensation of missing time. "Boo…Booker?"

"No…it is me, Nikola. You swooned, Miss Comstock."

"Where…where am I?" I asked woozily, realizing I was upon the sidewalk in his arms. At my side upon knees a worried Katharine looked on, her hand upon my wrist, checking my pulse.

"Wardenclyffe. You fainted but a few moments ago."

"Warden…clyffe? I…I felt a tear. A terrible one." I said, remember the taste of this one…like that night at Morgan's house when Katharine and I had gone snooping.

"You…felt it?" Tesla asked, brow furrowed. "With your finger? Where?" I looked upon the two of them, Katharine's glass shattered upon the ground and his in hand…unable to say a word for the dread I felt. "Here?" He finally said. Slowly the man helped me to my feet. I shook my head.

"What was that?" I asked him, perhaps both but referring to the glass.

"Elizabeth, what are you talking about?" Katharine answered, obviously having no idea as of what I was talking. Tesla, however…his face was that of a man convicted.

"What…was… _that_ , Mr. Tesla?" I asked now more sternly. Still my finger ached, the closer to them I'd noticed the worse.

"We merely…shared a glass of wine, my Dear. After such an odyssey you would not deny us that, would you?"

"You needn't prevaricate, Mr. Tesla. Even Mr. Morgan knows you're not so good at it, and he doesn't have a stool pigeon finger to tell him the truth! What was that that you gave her!?"

"Elizabeth, you're hysterical." He said embarrassedly with a look about.

"Niki?" Katharine asked with concern. "Was…was there something in the wine?"

Behind us the doors opened and Morgan stood before us, studying the suddenly quiet sidewalk leading to the office building. "There seems to be a commotion out here. Surprising with events presently to begin." One by one his eyes examined us, until he settled upon Tesla. "Mr. Tesla. The girl said she was going to find you so that we might commence. We appreciate the dinner, but since she has, indeed, found you, I trust there shall be no further delay?"

Briefly Tesla glanced to his companion and offered a sad smile. "My apologies, Mr. Morgan. Mrs. Johnson and I had…matters that could not be delayed. Elizabeth…" He continued. "You say that the Bunker is ready?"

"Indeed it is, Mr. Tesla." I answered with a swallow.

Tesla clapped his hands together and grinned broadly, glancing upward to the stars. "Then it is time we begin."


	17. Mors ab Alto

**17\. Mors Ab Alto - Monday Night, July 5th, 1912**

I found my hands and legs bound as I came too, a gag pulled painfully through the clench of my teeth. To my right the wind rattled evening-darkened window panes, ancient glass through which I could make out the guttural throes of faint conversation on the lawn. Through the door to my left came other muttered voices, similarly disjointed. From my bindings I tried to loosen myself but found only instant pain. My jaw ached. My arms burned. A rib or two was surely broken, for every time I moved, I wanted nothing more than to die. With my eyes barely open, laying upon the bare wooden floor and my side, I thought of her.

I must have been woozy for I was aroused later by the opening of the door, a wooden panel that opened with a stuttering creak. The silhouettes of three men entered speaking words unintelligible. To great pain they rousted me, drawing me upward by my back tied arms, dragged upon toes out and downstairs to the house's sparsely appointed great room. Outside through the windows I saw a flash and the tree line lit up in silent radiance, the ghostly shimmers coming from the east.

In the Great Room's center a peeling wooden chair had been set, about which the Germans were gathered. Roughly I was dumped into it and by arms untied, only to be bound anew at the armrests. As my consciousness surfaced I looked about at the five grey-clad foreigners, hard men whose faces were filled with disdain. I'd seen faces like those before…at Wounded Knee and the Rocks and outside of Manila. How many of their number had I killed or wounded this afternoon? Despite their longing to break my bones, none lifted a finger. Twenty minutes later, I found out why.

The car pulled up outside as the surrounding foliage shimmered in pinks and blues, like some ghostly fireworks show with neither the bang nor pop. Behind brilliant yellow headlamps I could hear the vehicle idling for a moment before another pulled in behind it. The seconds one's lights remained on a few moments longer…long enough to silhouette the figures of the men as they got out from the now dark automobile in front. "What time is it?" I heard a stout shadow ask as his feet hit the two steps up to the surrounding porch.

"11pm, Boss." The man next to him said.

"Good." As the other opened the door for him, I recognized that voice now, gravelly and Italian. "Maybe we'll get this done quick an be back for bed before two."

Over my shoulder I heard shoes descending the steps…saw Speer as he alighted upon the floor. For a moment Ciro paused there, surveying my wreck in the German's company. "Ah, Mr. Terranova. Good to have you with us. I trust your trip was…uneventful?"

"Good as could be, considering. So, you really got him. I'd begun to think he was long gone from these parts by now."

"By him, I assume you mean Mr. DeWitt?" Speer puffed.

Drawing from his pocket a pair of brass knuckles, Mose Scarlotti attended Ciro's side. "Told you, Boss. Jackpot."

Ciro smirked at his underling, those beady eyes almost gleeful. "So it is." Terranova stepped closer and knelt before me, brown eyes narrowed and dark. "Hello, Mr. DeWitt. I have been looking forward to this reunion for many days. How long has it been since you disgraced me in front of my brother and Arthur? A week?" He smiled, the man's dullard's face belying the murderous beast inside. "This evening is going to make me happy. I want you know that." He turned to Speer and Mose and the assembled Germans, handing out smiles before driving his clenched fist into my gut. I wheezed and grimaced, quivering in pain. "Preview of coming attractions, fish bait."

As the metallic taste of blood welled from the corners my mouth, Ciro chuckled. "So, Rudolph, that is your name, isn't it? What's with the lightshow out west?"

"We are as mystified as you are, Mr. Terranova." Speer answered smugly. Outside one man stood by the two automobiles, while three others had entered. I recognized them from the boat. Morellos. "We were hoping that perhaps you might be able to avail us of more detail."

"Well, it's real pretty. But I don't got no clue." Ciro continued, scratching his whiskered chin as his eyes dwelt upon me. "But maybe he does. So, what's with the lightshow, DeWitt?"

"How…should…I know?" I said, my voice breaking. For a moment there was silence.

"Have you any idea of why he might have been stalking us?" Speer followed.

Ciro looked at Scarlotti, who shook his head. "Not yet. But he'll sing pretty soon. It might take a few fingers, but he'll talk. How did you find him?"

"He found us, Boss." Scarlotti answered, eyes fixed upon me. "Casing the property. We'd stashed the hooch in the barn and I was givin' Rudolph and his boys some training on the street sweepers. We hears this gawd awful screech from the barn and I sent Ricky to take a look, only to find _this_ guy inside. They got into a scrap over one of the repeaters. That's when the man's guys got busy and poor Ricky got his back opened up."

"We are sorry about your man, Mr. Terranova." Speer answered dryly. "But he was hardly the only casualty of the evening. This DeWitt broke one of my men's backs, and severely injured two others before we overcame him. I ask again, since you seem to know him, _why_ is he here?"

Scarlotti looked to his boss.

Ciro was still eyeing me. "Bucko here used to be a Pinkerton before the ponies and booze got to him. Got his ass bounced for being a little too nasty on a job out west. Or so we thought. Nick and I paid a visit to his apartment last week and ran across a pretty young thing there. Said she didn't know nothing about our boy. Nick was with me so I played it straight, he's all proper like that, you know…but if I were to make a guess, I'll be she wasn't much a stranger to Booker here as she claimed. Ain't I right?"

I ignored him.

"After you visit the fishes, Booker…maybe…" He glanced to Mose with a smile, leaning closer to me such that I could smell his cigar-tainted breath, almost licking his chops. "Maybe I'll pay a visit to your sweetheart on my own _without_ Nicko in the way…a special one, if you know what I mean." I lunged, only to topple over onto my side with a crash. About me Terranova and Speer's men laughed. "Oh, struck a nerve, did I? Where there is _smoke_ , there is _fire_! Why are you here, DeWitt? Who sent you?!" He screamed.

"No…no one sent…me." I answered as my head rung from the impact with the carpet. For a moment Ciro looked angrily upon me…before wheeling back and kicking me in the gut. On the ground I grunted and moaned and wretched.

Pleased with himself as I writhed on the floor, he turned to Speer with that cocky smirk. "From what it seems, he's either been hiding out here for days, a real coincidence, or you're right and he _has_ been following you. Either way, I wanted to thank you _personally_ for gettin' this guy. We can take him off your hands, if you like. We've got matters to discuss. So, you like the mojo our boys brought by?"

"If you mean the weapons, yes." The German answered cagily, and as he spoke the hint of unease lay in the room. "The libations we have yet to experiment with."

"Hmmm. Too bad…'cause you'll like 'em when you do. You know, Speer…Rudolph…I usually don't ask questions, but what you, uh. intend to do with 'em? If you don't mind me askin'."

"If supposedly you do not ask questions, why then _are_ you asking?" Speer retorted.

"just 'cause you boys don't sound like you from around here." Ciro answered before tossing a nod to Mose.

"Sit him back upright." Scarlotti said, eyes casting through the windows toward the building next door. "Mario, I think I seen some tin snips out in the barn. How's about you go an' get 'em? It's getting late. Time for some answers." At Scarlotti's orders one of the boatmen stepped out, but then I saw him turn to look east, face agape. What you lookin' at, Mario.

"You ought to come look at this, Mose." The man said.

Scarlotti did so, and when he turned he was similarly transfixed. "Mary, mother of God." He said, waiting before he continued. "So, DeWitt…" Scarlotti finally continued as Ciro and the Germans turned to look at the brightening trees. "Let's try again with something easy. Maybe I'll let you die quick-like, if you're agreeable. Any idea of what's going on down the coast?"

I groaned.

For a moment I thought Ciro was going to wallop me again, until the window frames and light fixtures began to quake. It started as a slight vibration, growing more intense, felt more than heard. Soon a droning sound began to reverberate through the room and halls, the Morello men looking about in puzzlement while Speer's eyes widened.

Looking to the wireless operator who'd come running down the stairs during my previous beating, he tossed his head. "Nein, das können nicht sie sein! Noch nicht! Geh in die Scheune...erleuchtet das Leuchtfeuer!"

"What is that?!" Ciro exclaimed, moving with his men to look out through the windows. One minute the Germans were all looking to one another and their leader, whose eyes darted from the man running out the door to his own gray-coated minions. In unison they raised their repeaters and racked them. Hearing the arming of weapons at their backs, Ciro, Mose and the three boatmen stiffened, turning slowly to find the automatics pointed at them. Ciro remained cool about it, glancing at the nervous foreigners. "What is this? Who are you people?"

"That is none of your concern, Mr. Terranova. But _you_ are of _our_ concern."

"Ain't a good way to start a business relationship, Speer. You gotta know my family has long arms."

"Mr. Terranova…" Speer answered, eyes narrowing as he drew a pair of black leather gloves from his coat. "You must know that at certain moments of one's life, it is better to remain silent. As it is, you have seen too much… _heard_ too much." He looked the boatmen as the droning got louder, rattling now the floorboards and walls. "However, in the interest of future business needs, I am willing to extend to you this unique opportunity to demonstrate your trustworthiness. If you follow my instructions explicitly, you shall be released unharmed… _after_ we have achieved our objective." Speer glanced at the boatmen. "These men are your conveyance?" Warily Ciro nodded, eyes warily turned with his men toward the great thrumming coming from what I could tell was _above_. "You know of the north point on the island east of here, beyond the big inlet…that last large bit of land before open ocean?"

"Gardiner's Island?" One of Terranova's dark-headed creeps said, hands slightly raised.

"The peninsula on the north side of that island…be there at daybreak. Heinrich and Wulf shall give you transport back to your boat…but only _after_ you surrender your firearms. If your employer accommodates us, we shall deliver him unscathed upon the beach. If not…" Speer added with not the hint of a smile as his withering gaze fell upon Ciro. "Then perhaps _he_ might get to talk to the fishes."

#

Katharine sighed as she followed Nikola inside, and in the light of the porch I saw color in her cheeks I'd not seen. Her eyes turned back to me, pretty and full of life and she smiled, that smile I suppose that girls share with one another when their hearts fondest desires are met. About her eyes then I saw the strangest thing…where there had been little crows' feet there were none. And in her hair, I saw only gold and red…not the slightest hint of gray.

As she entered the office building Laslowe emerged, placing hat upon head as he descended the stoop toward the parking lot. "Are…are you not staying, Mr. Laslowe?" I asked, shocked to see him leave.

With driver at his side he smiled in a cursory manner. "Unfortunately, I have business nearby with Mr. Morgan's son. Since we were out this way, I thought I might handle it tonight. You know…" He grinned in a pompous, self-effecting way. "Kill two birds with one stone."

"Nearby?" I asked, not suspecting from my exploits that Long Island was anything but wilderness. "Mr. Morgan's _son_ lives here?"

"Not here. At least, not precisely." Laslowe said, drawing coat about himself before donning his hat. "West 40 miles at Matinecock Point. He's recently built his manor there. Quite splendid, I must say."

"A rather long drive for night around here." I said, crossing arms and suspicious as I leaned up against the wooden railing.

"Perhaps an hour…two at most. Giles is a good driver, accomplished at night even on difficult roads. And, as you know…" He said, glancing over the building at the tower's head now all aglow. "One can tell quite easily from a distance whether Mr. Tesla's pursuits are effective. Speaking of which, haven't you a place to be for tonight's festivities?"

My eyes cast back toward the door, hearing the shouts and commotion carrying from the yard. "I suppose I do."

With misgivings in heart I parted ways with the man, looking over shoulder as he and his driver took to their darkened automobile. Turning back inside, I made my way with troubled thoughts to the control room to find Tesla, Morgan and Astor present, Katharine attending from a chair against the wall. At my entry she seemed to liven and smile. "Ah, there you are." Tesla said. "Wardenclyffe and Macrahainish are operational, Elizabeth. We're about to bring up the North Tower. Alfie will be expecting you in the Bunker."

Along the window side bank of controls Tesla's men manned the dials and levers, while in the distance I could hear the generator house howling, smoke pouring from its diesels into the nighttime air. Power coursed through the cables and conduits around me, regulated by the controls in these men's hands. "Of course, Mr. Tesla." With the matter of the wine still very much upon my mind, I glanced to him and Katharine, finding Nikola's hair a shade darker and in hers now I was _certain_ again not a spot of gray…her face smooth as a baby's. I offered a worrisome smile and headed on my way.

As I emerged into the yard, to the north I saw something like the moon rising, only to cast off the tree line in an ephemeral shimmer that raced upward into the evening sky. High above it seemed to join with a cascade of other pink and blue shimmers amongst the stars, a green here and there, much like the evenings before but moving more vigorously in sheets and streaks. About Wardenclyffe the treetops were alight with radiant fire.

"Good that you could make it back, Miss Comstock." Alfred said as I descended the steps into the Bunker.

I took white lab coat about shoulders and approached, staring him in eyes as I donned gloves and hung goggles about neck. "When you can entertain billionaires with a smile and bat of eyelash, Mr. Peters, you shall have room to speak. I have done only as Mister Tesla requested, and you can _thank m_ e for that, as your jobs here at Wardenclyffe are just a little more secure. Now that I am back, I believe it is safe to commence our operation." At my retort his eyes widened and was taken aback.

As Johnnison and Meyer looked on, flummox turned to admiration and the men chuckled. Alfred turned and nodded his head to them with a little grin. "Perhaps we should have a discussion of how we plan to manipulate the tear, once generated?"

Walking to the humming machine, I glanced over the controls, the targeting window and threw the lever. "That shouldn't be necessary." I answered, my finger tingling. "I don't mean to be flippant, but I believe I have more experience handling tears in my scant years than the three of you shall have in your lifetimes combined." Checking the target, I found it set to our location with a 90-degree rotation. "Good for lift." Looking to the men but without any of their approval, I turned and pressed the initiator.

Beneath the main dome electricity began to arc and jump. My finger stung as I increased the feed, tweaking the voltage and frequency until it felt like a gentle thrum…even pleasant. In the recesses of my mind, it felt so good. It reminded me of…home

And home reminded me of Booker.

I didn't want to cry. Not again. About me everyone was waiting, and I realized I was staring at my finger. Beside me the shear of space was surrounded in a blinding ribbon of fire, the concrete floor of a place very much like ours visible through the tear. We'd earlier cleared any objects that might have become projectiles from near its throat, still the concrete wall creaked and groaned.

Forcing myself to be put him out of mind, I walked to the wall-mounted telephone and rung the control room. "Mr. Tesla, this is Elizabeth. The tear is ready for capture…we shall remain on standby until your evening's priorities are satisfied."

"New priorities, Miss Comstock." Tesla said, a waiver in his voice. "Mr. Morgan and Astor would like to see a lift example now."

"N…now?" I asked, looking to the boys. "What do you mean, _now_?"

"Thomas is driving one of the cars out into the yard near the tower. We are going to capture the tear and maneuver it over the vehicle." As he spoke a sheath of dust spilled from the floor into the tear, disappearing, and I wondered who possibly might be on the other end of that doorway. Attending the control box, I reoriented the mouth target five miles north, which was easy enough for I only had to spin the northing wheel upward until I saw black waves lapping below. Hurriedly I dashed back to the telephone. "The target is adjusted and safe, Mr. Tesla. Ready for capture…just remember to flip the directional."

As I rubbed my finger the men began to head upstairs and I followed, the four of us taking our places before the Bunker's concrete as Mister Parsons parked Tesla's Model V midway between the crackling, shimmering conic trellis and the office building. Hastening away, he jogged to the lines of men standing before the windows of the control room. "Standby for electromagnetic coupling in three, two, one…capture." Came Tesla's voice over the loudspeakers. Behind us I heard a thump and crackling. I turned to see the shimmer of lightning undulating in streaks as it rose from the Bunker's doors, hovering like some sort of fiery ghost in the starry sky. It seemed to dance and flow in ribbons emanating from the cap of the tower. "Rolling 70 meters southwest." As the tear moved dirt and debris spiraled into a pall like a dust devil had passed, the concrete slabs of the yard shifting and groaning and popping beneath it. In the yard everything was now silent. "Roll another five meters north." The inventor said, voice resonating about the buildings, and through the windows I could see those blue eyes intent. The silent tear came to hover over Tesla's conveyance, which although shuddering and groaning remained exactly where it was.

Whispers began to emerge from the crowded rows of onlookers, for it seemed as though everyone at Wardenclyffe had come out tonight to see the spectacle. "Tesla…" Astor said. "Is this…this all?"

At his side Morgan was clearly unamused. "I could see a light show better than this on the Fourth of July! Tesla, I ask you to find a way to transmit stock prices and you promise me moving pictures. After a decade of listening to your promises, you barely make a handful of transmissions overseas! _Then_ you inform me that the true goal is not the mere transmission of information, but of _electricity_ , even though you've no reliable way to meter it! _Still_ I lend you credence. But this…this is the _last_ straw. You come into my very house and attempt to put upon me, the Board of the Mercantile Marine this…this _sham_?! I for one have had enough!"

Everyone in the yard was listening to the man except Tesla, who in almost a trancelike state had emerged from the control room, approaching with mystified face the silent, fiery tear and the automobile quivering beneath it. "But it should be lifting." I heard him say, eyes puzzled with and searching with the greatest focus. "Is the target set correctly!?" I heard him cry out.

"It is!" I answered. "Inverse orientation, a few miles to the north of here."

"Tesla!" Morgan shouted, growing angrier at the scientist's complete disregard.

"It's in balance." He said with a little chuckle. Laughing louder he turned to Morgan and Astor, to the rank and file of his assembled technicians and scientists. "It's in equilibrium. Why didn't I see that before?"

"What do you mean, man?" Morgan said.

With wild eyes Tesla looked to them all, smiling. "The zeppelin had our little motors. A Model V automobile does not. The tear merely counters weight." Turning upon heel, he marched across the concrete and looked to Parsons. "Tommy…take the rear end…I shall take the front."

"What?" Parsons answered, obviously not understanding.

"Do as I say, as if we are to handle a couch and turn it over." Cautiously and looking up at the rip in the sky, Tesla approached the car, reaching down along its front grill to take it by the chrome fender. "No closer or we'll both fly. As Parsons mimicked him, Tesla looked up. "On my count, lift in three, two, one…now." Together they heaved and the vehicle, a thousand pounds or more of it, whose bulk rose slowly but effortlessly into the air to the gasps of all assembled. Morgan and Astor's faces fell. "Now, turn it toward the building." Hand over hand the two men spun the vehicle bottom to top in mid-air. "And…let go!" They did…and before them, between them, it kept spinning mid-air. Gasps rose all about the yard.

As the car continued to turn, Tesla dusted off his hands and nodded approvingly to an equally dumbstruck Thomas Parsons. His head swung to Morgan and Astor, the inventor approaching the men with a smug grin upon his face to offer them a curt bow. Astor was smiling. Morgan was in shock. "I take back every malign or ill-tempered word I have ever said about you, Mister Tesla."

"And I _you_ , Mr. Morgan." Slowly those vindicated eyes turned back toward us at the Bunker and he winked at me. "Now, if we have your permission, it is time to begin."

As the men stood before one another I heard a shout beyond the wall, followed by what sounded to be the back fire of an automobile. Then came another, followed by a rapid burst. Technicians and scientists began to look about, Tesla and Astor perhaps the most puzzled. Drawing his pistol, Parsons was in motion, headed for the office…at least until from its confines came a shout and the explosion of bullets. From the back door one of Morgan's coated entourage burst, nearly bowling Tommy over, looking desperately across the crowd over before finding his master. "Mr. Morgan we've got to go! We've got to go now!" I didn't know what was going on, but I knew it was bad. In the yard men were beginning to run, hastening for buildings.

"What…what is going on?" Alfred said, trepidation in his voice. Hans and Harvey were backing away, back to the door of the Bunker.

"Guns…" I said in disbelief. "Repeating rifles, like they use in Columbia!"

"Columbia?" Peters answered, backing away from a particularly loud shot. In the control room a man screamed, followed by bright flashes.

"They're shooting people!" I shouted and turned. "Run!"

"Down here!" I heard to my right, turning to see Johnnison beckoning us through the steel door of the Bunker. At the north entrance Booker and I had first arrived days before a vehicle pulled up, lights shining upon the silhouettes of men running its way. Two men got out its sides and immediately began firing at the fleeing workers. By the arm Alfred grabbed me, yanking me to the Bunker door and handling me roughly inside. Behind us Johnnison looked at me before shutting it. With its steel closed and locked, he threw a deadbolt.

"That should hold them."

"No…it won't stop them!" I said as I alighted upon the concrete floor and looked back. Beside us the tear machine was whining in full force, but beneath the orb no tear was present. "We have to decouple…to bring the tear back here so we can close the doors!" I ran to the machine's controls, looking frantically back and forth over the array.

"Just shut it down!" Meyer shouted to more gunfire outside. I glanced to my thimble, reached for the power supply and changed the frequency. From above a great burst of light illuminated the skylight, a shimmering radiating outward in brilliant fan that for a moment stayed the shooting. With a crack the tear boiled and undulated before us. Even I was shocked.

"You don't understand!" I screamed. "It might be our only chance of escape!"

"What do you mean, escape!?" Johnnison said, the other two men looking on in horror at the sight. "You don't mean to go through it, do you!?"

"What other choice do we have!?" Through the window something eclipsed the ocean, something dark and moving low along the waves, accompanied by a low but deafening drone. My eyes widened. "What…what is that?"

The scientists turned to look through the fiery aperture, seeing from above the cigar shape. Upon its sides motors were roaring, deafening over the now sporadic shots and crackling of the tear. "It's an airship." Peters said.

As I recognized the golden hammer and sickle upon its bloody tail, my heart froze. Atop its superstructure an arclight turned our way, brilliant and blinding as the sun. Words were screamed in German and bullets followed, blasting the wall of the bunker to gravel. I shrieked and dove for the floor, coming to rest beside the machine, wishing beyond hope that he'd just appear. But he was gone, he would not be here to save us. Not any of us.

"Shut it off!" I shouted. Upon the door at the top of the steps I heard banging, loud then insistent in a strange language I remembered from the Bolsheviks in Columbia. Hearing my plea, Meyer glanced to me then the machine, then in one lunge leapt for the big black power lever. As he did so I swung my hand upward, catching my pinkie through the roiling tear. He came down on the lever hard. The tear collapsed.

And I screamed.

#

"No, you idiot! Bind it tighter!" I heard as pressure came onto my finger, hurting worse than I could ever remember. "Elizabeth, why, why did you do that!?" It seemed as though minutes had passed, the pain great as the Siphon probe Booker had pulled from my back at Comstock House.

"I…I had to save us." I winced, looking at my bloody, bandaged stub that was now a quarter inch shorter. Tears rolled down my cheeks.

"How would that save us!?" Peters asked, aghast at my self-amputation.

Above him through the Bunker's doors I saw men looking down…armed men. "Sie dort unten...heben Sie Ihre Hände hoch oder wir schießen!"

"I think they want our hands up." Peters said. Johnnison spun, raising his own.

"Öffne die Tür!"

"What?" Johnnison asked. Above the gray-coated man gestured to the door. From the floor upon my backside I gazed upward, seeing the tear machine dark as the sky, my finger throbbing. Step by step Johnnison took to the flight, looking behind him at the intruder's weapon before reluctantly unbarring the barricade.

Ist es das?" The shadow of a tall, gray-coated man said at the top of the steps.

"Ja, Herr Kommissar." His companion announced. Amid my agony I heard a droning sound, precisely like the one I'd heard through the tear. In my mind I imaged my little sliver of bone and flesh bouncing across the Zeppelin's fabric surface, sliding and bounding a bloody trail past the puzzled gunner and tail planes and down into Long Island Sound far below. Somewhere close. Somewhere far away.

 _Somewhere with him._

"I will be brief about this, for we have little time. Cooperate and you shall live. Defy us or delay, and you shall die." The droning became louder, until overhead the stars were blotted from the sky. "I ask you one question…what is this machine?" Frozen as we were, none of us spoke. Behind the tall man two gunmen stood. The gray-coated man nodded and the men bounded down the stairs. Perhaps in some misguided attempt at chivalry Alfred stepped forward, only to be smashed in the chin by the butt of one of their clearly Columbian Triple R's.

"Bring sie nach oben! Legen Sie sie gegen die Wand!" Their commander cried.

With Alfred and me bleeding the four of us were marshalled up the concrete steps at gunpoint, Harvey and Hans helping me by the arms until we came out upon the yard. Above the tower glowed faintly but was clearly dead. A great airship hung above it, motors idling, bristling with guns and armament. From its passenger compartments ladders dangled, while at the front grapples were strung to the lattice of the tower and drawn tight.

Across the yard I saw before the office building many bodies, and Tesla, Morgan and Astor upon their knees, hands behind their heads. Though restrained by a man, Katharine was upright, screaming against the office building's back wall in horror.

"I will ask this again. I do not understand what this device below is. Can any of you help me?" When none of us spoke he nodded, and the four of us were placed backs against the Bunker wall. The Bolsheviks raised their weapons, and against all hope I raised my hands, trying to reach out…to create a tear. I found nothing. "Was macht Sie?" The leader said.

"Ich habe keine Ahnung. Vielleicht ist sie verrückt."

"Perhaps this will loosen your tongues. Töte den Fetten."

Gunfire exploded to my left, hitting Alfie Peters in the chest. I screamed, hands coming to my mouth as he looked at the blood pooling upon his chest…then slumped over upon the ground, lifeless. I shrieked and lunged at the shooter. He batted me away, and with a scowl came around with the butt of his weapon.

"Vorsicht, ruiniere nicht ihr hübsches Gesicht, Hans." I heard as hands pulled me from the cold concrete, and my eyes opened to see a blurry Hans Johnnison.

"Ja, die Jungs werden sie später gerne weitergeben."

"Hör auf zu reden, Dummkopf." The leader said.

A figure came alongside him and he came to attention, the man in a black leather coat and hat with a red star above its black leather brim. His hair was sandy, and I'd seen him before. _Edmonton._ "Wen haben wir hier? Das Mädchen kommt mir bekannt vor."

"Who are you? I shall not ask again."

"I…I'm Harvey Meyer. This is Hans Johnisson..." He said, looking to the dark-haired man next to him. "The girl is Elizabeth. We are Nikola Tesla's scientists."

"And what, precisely, do you do science on?" One of the gunners reloaded his weapon, bringing the barrel to bear upon Hans.

"On the machine inside. It…it…" Looking about at the carnage, Johnnison suddenly stopped speaking and I realized he was more than ready to die to prevent the secret from getting out.

"It's a tear machine." I interjected, my head still swimming from the blow I'd received. "It…opens doorways to other realities."

"Other…realities?" The Bolshevik said. "You must be joking."

"Elizabeth, stop!" Hans said, almost yelled. He moved to silence me himself, but the men intervened.

"Don't Hans. Harvey. If you do what they ask, they'll spare us." I answered. To my left I heard a sharp crack, followed by Katharine's renewed cries. One of the scientists in Tesla's group fell over face forward. Fear raced cold through my veins.

"Help her up." As Johnnison and Peters pulled me by my elbows to my feet, my world swam.

"I ask you again, what does the machine do!?" Edmonton's friend repeated.

"I told you, it opens doorways to other realities. I am not lying. After what you've done to me, how could I?" By their blurred faces I could see the Bolsheviks speechless.

"And the towers? We had thought them for the transmission of power alone, but when we arrived we saw this…"

"Tear."

"Tear, suspended above the heights. What was that?"

"Mr. Tesla, he's…" Seeing Johnisson and Meyer's eyes, I hesitated. "Was trying to create one on a larger scale using the tower apparatus."

"And you are?" Edmonton asked, reaching forward to bring my chin and eyes to his.

"Elizabeth. Elizabeth…Montgomery." I answered, wondering how possibly he could not recognize me. Unless, of course, he _didn't_.

"This woman is no scientist. She is but a beer house girl." Edmonton's peer stated, but I could see the ersatz Englishman not so convinced. "Spouting fantastic lies."

"Perhaps, Speer..." From above heavy ropes fell, coiling upon the Bunker's open roof as men slid down their length. "But after what we have seen here, I am willing to believe everything Friedmann relayed to us. Let us take them to the others and separate wheat from chaff."

I could barely think as I walked. The jamb of a rifle butt in my back helped, forcing me along until we were ordered to kneel upon the concrete along with the others. Many black uniformed soldiers had dropped from the hovering airship, sliding down the ladders to run to the walls. As they did so, one by one they were rearmed with the Columbian repeaters. Inside the office building records were being stripped, stacks of them accumulating in crates to the side of the tower and the waiting baskets of sky cranes. As I took my place, Katharine was knelt at my side, her eyes horrified when she saw the bruises and blood upon my tightly bound hand.

"Of course, you know you shall be accompanying us." The man Edmonton had called Speer said, lifting Tesla's face by a firm grasp of jaw. "Even _we_ in the Bavarian Soviet have heard that the bulk of your secrets resides within your head." In the week I had known him, I'd not seen Tesla cry, but with blood and bodies all about, how could he not? Like mine, tears rolled down his cheeks. "Tell us more about your beamed power. Better yet, show us…" He glanced to me and Katharine. "Or we shall begin by killing your women." Tesla looked a broken man, and at the urging of one of the soldiers reluctantly rose.

"You won't get away with this." Morgan grumbled. "Our government shall hunt you down. I assure it."

Speer turned to Morgan's bodyguards, sprawled upon pools of blood on the concrete. Here and there within the cowed, kneeling crowd I heard a cry, whimpers and softly muttered prayers. "And you think that because you are the great John Pierpont Morgan that you are unable to die? You, good Sir, are the very reason for our existence. You and your kind take, like parasites, thinking the whole world your own. You surround yourselves with fine things while children live in squalor, while families die of disease. We shall _not get away with it_?" Speer knelt, coming eye to eye with Morgan as Astor and Tesla looked on beside them. "We already have. And we shall continue to 'get away with it' until our righteous flame burns away your Imperialist mountains, pompous man." Speer rose, and as Morgan began to speak drew a pistol and cocked it before the billionaire's face. Morgan flinched, eyes closed, turning away for the impending shot. "I thought so. You are afraid to die. But I give you a secret, rich man." He uncocked his weapon. "Death comes to us all." His eyes turned to red-faced Tesla. "Eventually. Bring the inventor, the rich men and these two women. We are leaving."

#

As the crane basket lifted us upward Katharine grasped at my arm, seeking like me anything to hold on to…anything to still the terror in our hearts. Beside the woman a broken Tesla took her hand, tears trailing his cheeks as he looked to the ruins of Wardenclyffe below. Glancing downward, we could see a dozen dead, Johnisson and Meyer along with surviving staff of his little city being lined up against its red brick walls. All alone, Alfred's corpse lay in a twisted pile next to the bunker. To the north I heard sirens, saw the arrival of car lights followed by the barrage of automatic rifle fire.

We came into the airship's quarterdeck as the carnage unfolded, our further movement encouraged anew by those rifles. Still dazed from the Bolshevik's earlier "hospitality," I stumbled into Tesla's side, only to be snared by Astor's quick arms.

"Are you all right?" He said, concern etched upon his distinguished features and kindly eyes. At his side Katharine and Tesla looked on, worrying for what the next few minutes might bring apparent.

"I'm okay." I rasped, holding my still throbbing head and hand as the soldiers marched us forward down a long corridor. At the fore a crewman opened a thin door and we emerged fearfully onto the bridge. About a wooden wheel and elevation planes three men stood in black uniform, another beside the windows, gazing outward with hands clasped behind his back. Upon his sleeve he wore four golden rings.

"Kapitän Zinn, unsere Gäste sind angekommen." Edmonton said calmly. Outside I could see red lights flashing beyond Wardenclyffe's gates, a pair of cars perhaps. The only movement were _Engels'_ men. Behind us a guard closed the door.

"Sehr gut. Gut gemacht, Kommissar." Tall and gaunt, the Captain turned to us, monacled eye studying us from a gaunt gray face with the worst features of an eagle. "I will not mock your intelligence, but I shall tell you that you are prisoners of the Bavarian Soviet. Which one is Morgan?"

"I am." The financier said despite Astor's attempted restrain. His haughty demeanor had vanished, something which frightened me, for his confidence had been a bulwark. "What do you want of me?"

"Only your Empire." The Captain answered, pacing about his corralled prisoners. From outside came a new barrage of gunfire and screams, terror rising into the nighttime air like the shimmering beauty that had preceded it. At the sound we all jolted, Telsa taking Katharine in his arms with their eyes tightly closed. "You are fortunate. Not being a scientist or a technical man, you would have ended with the rest. But you are the great John Pierpont Morgan. And you, I presume, the mighty John Jacob Astor. And fate, or justice, has brought you to me. Oh, I see in your faces the fear of death…you do deserve it, but you shall be allowed to live…as long as you accede to my demands."

"You know who we are." Astor interrupted. "To whom are we speaking?"

"You speak to Arould Zinn, Captain of _Engels_ , the seventh aerial dreadnaught of the Red Armada." Edmonton answered.

"And our mission is simple." Zinn said, pacing back and forth as flames erupted from the buildings below. "To secure the electrical transmission plans and examples of hardware from your facility, Mr. Tesla, along with the requisite scientists to reconstitute said capabilities within the expanding frontiers of the Internationale. This we have done. But what this woman has revealed, what these men have created…is beyond the pale. If true, that is." Without removing his hands he approached Tesla, peering eye to eye. "I only ask, _is_ it true? Have you found a way to make a doorway in space and time? The men said you'd used it to levitate a vehicle when we arrived."

Tesla remained silent.

Zinn glanced to me. "Have the girl thrown off."

"No!" Katharine and Astor shouted. Rough hands grasped at my arms and I fought back, but in the men's grip I was bound like a vice.

Tesla jumped to the forefront. "It is true! It is! But if you kill the girl, you will be sadly put out for she is one of the two remaining scientists with knowledge of this process…the others of which your fiends have now killed!"

"Oh." Zinn said ambivalently, only to look at Katharine's terrified visage. "Then kill the other one." As his remark, Katharine's eyes widened and she outright fainted.

"There is no need for that!" Tesla exclaimed, dashing to her side to spare her from the worst of her fall. I stood alone now, quaking. "The device is called a Tear Machine. It opens portals to…" He paused. "To anywhere you desire, but it is temperamental and as I have said, besides myself and the woman you have killed the _only_ men in the world capable of taming it! Spare Mrs. Johnson…" He paused, looking at Astor and Morgan and me. "And my friends…and I shall assist you freely."

Behind us the door opened and an underling in dark uniform entered. "Der Kapitän, die Maschinen und alle Dokumente und Pläne sind an Bord. Die letzten unserer Männer kommen die Leitern herauf. Aufträge?"

"Wenn das letzte Mal fertig ist, bringen Sie die Motoren auf volle Leistung und machen Sie nach Osten." The messenger and men on the bridge came to attention and attended their controls. Zinn's eyes narrowed as he looked to Tesla, the men and me. "The objective was not only to ascertain what capabilities you had, Tesla, but to deny it to any of your bourgeoisie governments." A telephone rang and the lead helmsman nodded to his Captain. "And now that we have, we are off." Outside the engines roared to life, the lights across the countryside began to swim about us and I felt queasy.

"You must know this is an act of war, Zinn." Morgan said in a low rumble. "What you have done here tonight."

"An act of _war_ , Morgan? Between nations, perhaps, but you have been at war for your entire life against the workers of this world, the haggard and oppressed. This war you talk of has been long in coming, spurred by the poor, dead Czar's egregious disdain for human life and a small horde of mad Prussian militarists." Zinn leaned in, his mustache immobile as he spoke. "And facilitated by you and your potentates and princes! We shall talk again." He nodded to the armed men behind us. "But later. Take the gentlemen and ladies to their accommodations. Consider, however, what price your monopolies might be willing to exchange for your bodies…with your heads still attached."


	18. Fly by Night

**18\. Fly by Night - Early Tuesday, 6th of August, 1912**

The stir of engines rumbled through the airship's frame as Zinn's men led us aft, single file through the incandescent-lit navigation room. At its spartan central table a navigator hovered, blond-haired and blue-eyed in his black turtleneck, plotting a course across the Atlantic with silver dividers in hand. My eyes tarried too long upon that map, looking at the black line across the ocean's blue depths, for my glance was followed by a shout and the jolt of a rifle at my back. Upon the Quarterdeck, Morgan, Astor and Tesla were spirited away in protest while Katharine and I were marched through an aft hatch. There the gray-carpeted floor and comforts of the crew compartments gave way to thin catwalk and rough canvas walls, the noise louder, assaulting my ears even more so than my forays into the _First Lady's_ and _Hand of the Prophet's_ dingy centers had done. The imaginary delights of Paris seemed a long way away.

"What…what do you think will become of us?" Katharine whispered and I felt about my fingers her tremulous grasp…sensed the fear in her voice. In the tumult of our ascension and Zinn's castigation hair had fallen, disheveled now about her shoulders and glinting golden in the passing lights. Makeup was smeared about her reddened eyes. As we walked _Engels'_ men us loomed like mountains to front and back. Perhaps in days past I might have had some hope, but without my devices I was nothing against them or their weapons. "Surely Mr. Morgan is right. There must be a reckoning." The memory of Booker and Zachary crossed my mind…a futile day dream I could not afford. "But…but I'm not certain I believe in justice anymore."

"Robert…" She whispered, hand upon chest and tearful. "He shall be beside himself when I do not call. And when the news reaches him about Wardenclyffe…"

Before she could further decompose, I squeezed her hand tight and turned her to me. "We're together, Katharine. We've known one another for only a few days, but...whatever happens of us, we shall endure it together." Beneath those eyes the corner of her mouth turned with the ghost of a smile.

We proceeded up a flight of flimsy aluminum steps, each plate filled with holes and bowing beneath our weight. The catwalk that receded from the stair's top was likewise more air than metal. We emerged in a darkened hold surrounded by eight fence cages.

"In here." One of our escorts said in heavy accent, a burly man with a tall forehead, darkest hair and lustful brown eyes, gesturing with repeater to one of the small and furniture-less enclosures. In trepidation Katharine entered, turning alongside me to face our captors from its chain-link corner. In the cold I let escape a singular sob, catching my despair with the curl of unwounded fingers. The crewmen locked our cage, turned and began to chat, eyes upon us both and not in a respectful manner. Trying to descend no further into despair, I closed my eyes and comforted myself with the warmth of her closeness. It was no surprise she was trembling too.

"He loves you, you know." I said quietly, remembering how the two of them had been upon the sidewalk before Wardenclyffe. "Mr. Tesla."

She swallowed and turned away, obviously shamed. "And I him. I've…I've never betrayed Robert, you know..." She snuffed, wiping her eyes. "Though I must confess many a time temptation has crossed my mind. But neither Niki nor I could bear it. How is it that you can feel so…so _dead_ with someone you supposedly love, but so _alive_ with someone you're not supposed to?"

From besides us I heard a groan, and I opened my eyes to see sprawled upon the next cage's wooden floor a figure in torn, bloodied white shirt…and tuxedo pants.

" _BOOKER!"_ I yelped and jumped to the fence, eyes suddenly wide, shocking the guards such that they brought their weapons to bear. In exhilaration I sunk to my knees, reaching through the diamond wire of the chain link to touch his blood-caked cheek. "Oh, no, no, _no_!"

Blue eyes opened to meet mine…the most beautiful eyes in the world. "E…Elizabeth?"

Despite his wounds his hand found mine, and it was so wonderfully, thankfully warm. "How…how did you get here!? Oh, God…what happened to you!?" Tears of joy streamed my cheeks.

"Ciro Terranova happened." Booker eked, a ripple of pain crossing his face. "Selling…selling guns to the Germans. Made…made a deal."

"It doesn't look like a very good deal." I shot back, the ache in my head only just subsiding.

"Elizabeth? Who…who is that?" Katharine knelt at my side, eyes dawned in recognition. "Mr. DeWitt!"

"The one…uhggnn…the one and only." He said without particularly moving.

Too hastily for my own good I was up, hands upon the gate, the lascivious guards easing their black barrels our way. I raised my hands. "Please, let me…" I looked to Booker upon the adjacent floor in despair. " _Please_ , let us bring that man to our cell. He's wounded!"

"Was zum Teufel sagt sie?" The dark-haired one's compatriot said, scratching round cheeks with a puzzled look.

"Keine Ahnung. Sag ihr, sie soll sich in den Arsch setzen!"

"Sit!" The round one jammed the barrel of his repeater through the chain link the into my nostril. With it in cross-eyed focus I stumbled backward, falling roughly upon my haunches. From behind I felt a finger upon my hand.

"Elizabeth."

Despite the rifle's threat I turned and kissed his fingers. "Oh, Booker, I'm here! I so wish I could _help_ you!"

"You already have." He rasped, opening his eyes before rolling and pressing himself upward from the deck plate. Once more a wave of agony wracked his face. "How…how did _you_ get here?"

"They _attacked_ Wardenclyffe, Booker. They killed…killed…." I couldn't say it but had to. "They murdered Tesla's people…Alfie Peters…dozens of them…and…and…and destroyed the buildings and grounds. We're…" I choked and closed my eyes, weeping uncontrollably. "The only…"

"I'm sorry…sorry I left." He said, eyes opening to meet mine through the fence. "And I'm so…so…damned happy to see you." That unsteady gaze fell to my fingers. "Elizabeth, your hand…"

I held it up, the bandage soaked through again with blood but not as badly as it had been before. "An accident." I answered, half laughing as I wiped my joy away. "My…finger is a little shorter now."

#

I'd been certain that not only would I never see her again, but that I was good as dead. Over the last hours I'd _wished_ I were dead. Now she knelt before me, white blouse torn and temple bruised, looking to me with those beautiful blue eyes. It had to be a mirage. Yet her hand was wrapped in a blood-soaked bandage, wrapped tightly about her little finger. Mirages didn't bleed. From behind my daughter a disheveled Katharine Johnson looked on, eyes widening as she recognized my face. Like Elizabeth she was a mess, yet somehow managed to draw the guards' attention. It took me a moment to focus.

"I…I thought you'd left." Elizabeth sniffed, tears bracketing her nose in glistening trails. About her neck she still wore my choker.

"I did too."

Through the links her fingertips touched warmly my cheek. "I shouldn't have done what I did…said what I said. I'm so sorry."

"Maybe…maybe I should have had a thicker skin. You asked…you asked how I got here." I looked about now, seeing immense bags of silvered canvas in the trusses above. Somewhere in the distance the droning I'd though was the hangover from my beatings continued. "Where exactly _are_ we?"

"You…don't _know_?" At her words I shook my head, the motion continuing long after I'd stopped. "We're onboard _Engels_ , a Bolshevik… _Bavarian_ airship, headed east. By the charts I saw in the navigation room, to Europe, I think."

" _Engels_?" I winced, attempting to push from the floor. "But _Engels…_ was destroyed."

"Not here." She whispered back, and in the back of my mind I remembered the newspaper. "Booker, J.P. Morgan is here too, as well as Mr. Tesla and John Astor." She whispered, looking to Katharine beside her and careful not to speak too loudly. "Up front in the crew compartments. We're all prisoners!"

"Morgan and Tesla and Astor? _Prisoners_?"

"Yes…prisoners of these men, bound for Europe to be ransomed!" Katharine added from her side, eyes angry yet quite obviously terrified of our captors. "Their Bolshevi…"

"Sie dort, halt die Hölle!" One of the black-uniformed guards said from outside, clashing the butt of his Triple R on the cage as he glared at us. Both she and Elizabeth regarded with silent, reddened eyes.

"Yeah. Germans…I noticed. You should have seen 'em in China." I closed my eyelids, trying to get the pain in my ribs and head out of my mind. "At least you're going to have your wish come true." With the guard glaring at us, Katharine eased her back to the fencing.

Once more I felt the brush of Elizabeth's fingers, saw her eyes downcast. "I don't think we're going to make it to Paris."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that."

"After the gala, I felt terrible. Robert and I searched all over New York for you. We made it as far as the Bowery." Her voice had the tone of a confession.

"You got to the _Bowery_? How did you know I…? What did you see?" I said, remembering Mose and the bum.

Outside I saw motion and the pudgier turtleneck arriving with keys. Opening the gate to the womens' cell, the soldier entered with his barrels pointed at my daughter's head. "Der nächste, der spricht, bekommt eine Kugel in den Kopf!" In a blur he swung the butt of the gun about and with its flat caught her in the temple.

"Damn you!" I exploded from the floor, only to be stopped by the metallic flex of the fence. Instantly the guard turned gun to me and barked, the other chuckling upon the catwalk behind him before spitting upon the floor beside my moaning girl. Rage built inside me, the desire to jam that damned repeater down his miserable, scrawny neck.

A crow landed upon my wrist.

I heard those calls then, the one's I heard when Mose had let loose upon the bum…screeches of hate and hunger for vengeance deep within the recesses of my mind…yearning only to be released. In that instant I wondered why no one else seemed to hear them…why Katharine still gazed as if frozen upon Elizabeth's assailant in fear…why the Germans were ignoring my pet's sleek and loathsome beauty despite its impossible, lethal omen. In slow motion the cackling German gestured with the barrel of his rifle for me to sit, and as I looked at his smugness, his hatred for someone he barely knew…someone whose country _he_ 'd not only invaded but who's people he'd outright murdered in cold blood…I'd had enough.

A black shadow struck him in the side of the head, leaving a wicked gash red across his eyes and the bridge of his nose. Blood burst forth and he squealed like a girl, only for the bloody black gash to be followed by another…and another. Extending my arm outward, holding my fingers in a "L" like I'd seen Mose do, I raged at him, the man' screams filling the hollows between the surrounding gas bags. The screeching and cawing came closer, and I realized I'd not even begun. As the other guard turned to the first's travail, a blizzard of birds hit him full force. Screaming and thrashing, they fell beneath my diabolical onslaught.

"Katharine, get the keys!" I screamed, seeing Elizabeth dazed upon the floor. Though recoiling from the carnage the redhead heard me, managing to fish the metal ring from her cell's lock despite abject terror. Shrinking past the men's thrashing, crow-encrusted bodies to my cage, she made short order of the lock. Hobbled but upright, I emerged to appropriate the offending Repeater from a growing red stain upon the ground. I spun it butt first, smashing Elizabeth's attacker with a blow to his blood-streaked chin. The birds took him in a screeching pile. By now the other was enmeshed in my spiral of pecking, tearing demons, his dying screams gawdawful. I thought about doing the same favor for him, but then I saw an eye ball in one of the crow's beaks and decided the crows were handling him just fine. And I realized that somehow my ribs didn't hurt so much anymore.

Turning from my grisly production, I hastened to Elizabeth's side. "Elizabeth, can you see me?!" I yelled against the cacophony, looking into her distant, glazed eyes.

"Booker?" She moaned.

"Oh, please let her be all right!" Katharine exclaimed, pressing to my side. "She was struck earlier in the night, too!"

I stumbled, falling upon my side beside her. "Are you all right?"

Elizabeth looked up to me, face in pain. "A tear. I felt a tear."

"Can you walk?" With our assistance Elizabeth managed to pull herself up to me until we were eye to eye. Hers were swimming and from the knot on the side of her head I figured they might do so for a while.

"I…I think so." She took a woozy step before falling upon me. In my arms she felt so damned good. A smile came to her face and warmth to mine.

"We don't have much time." I said, leaning upon the fence post for support. "We have to move." Hand covering her mouth, Katharine was still looking at the dying men. "Come on."

We left the cages behind, me in front and the women in close trail, Elizabeth hanging upon Katharine to ensure her footing. Through thin mesh along the airship's upper extent I could see those giant gas bags, bladders lined end to end with no gaps. Instinctively I realized they must hold hydrogen, and a shooting match here wouldn't lead to no happy outcome. We soon came to a landing that turned left, surveying there a set of stairs. As with the catwalks and structure, the stairs were almost insubstantial. The walls were likewise thin with much of them simply pressed linen coated with sealant, giving the airship a feeling as though it had been constructed of cardboard. Still holding her head with that bloodied hand, Elizabeth struggled to catch her breath. What happened to your finger?"

"Industrial accident." She eked, not quite with a smile. "I thought that maybe…maybe I could save us."

Realizing exactly what she meant, my eyes widened. "Elizabeth, no! You didn't…"

"You were gone!" She protested before looking away. "It…it doesn't matter, anyway. It didn't work."

At the base of the steps a corridor ran left and right, and I put my hand out to hold the women back. "Wait." I whispered. Slowly I poked my head out to reconnoiter. "Two men down the passage. None aft." In her hands Robert's redhead now held a pistol.

"Where did you get that?"

"From one of the guards." She answered, green in the gills as her thoughts revisited my handiwork. "What…what did you do back there, Mr. DeWitt?"

"You know how to use that?" I answered instead.

"My husband has edified me on its finer points." Johnson answered rather stiffly, sensing suppressed fear…perhaps of me. I nodded approvingly before snatching it away from her.

"Then you should also realize that if you do get froggy, you're likely to hit one of those balloons up there with a red-hot bullet. Do you know what hydrogen is?" Eyes uncomprehending, she shook her head as I inspected the sidearm. "It's a gas that burns, like we used to use in our lights before electricity, but even more flammable. And those bladders are _filled_ with it, so don't shoot unless you _absolutely_ have to or well all go poof."

"Poof? Then what do you propose we do, Mr. DeWitt?!" She shot back, Irish temper flaming such that Elizabeth turned to look. "We are outnumbered at least ten to one!"

Down the passage I heard a shout and again placed them both behind me. Despite my recent lessons, I still didn't speak German, but I discerned the call more hail than alarm. Footsteps approached, followed by a young voice. "Gerhard, bist du das? Der Erste Offizier möchte, dass Sie nach vorne kommen."

"More like twenty." I shoved the Steyr back into Katharine's hand. As a young German towhead turned the corner, we shared a frozen moment. Instead of raising the alarm he went for his pistol, which was his mistake. I grabbed him by the neck of his sweater and bashed his face against the passage's corner, denting the wall and leaving his body to slide to the floor. Being women, both Katharine and Elizabeth shrieked, and I wasn't the only one who heard. Down the passage I came another voice…this time not so cordial.

I leaned out to see a uniformed man shouting, bringing pistol to bear as he charged our way. Realizing that putting a bullet in him might not only give us away but quite possibly kill us, I figured these sky men surely knew that too and that gunplay here was verboten. With a scowl I glanced to Elizabeth and brought my arm to bear.

From deep inside that anger I pulled, and by now I had boat loads of it. My vision blurred and a single crow fell like a shot from of the trusses above, smashing into the man's visage and causing him crash face first into the metal catwalk. His body tumbled and sprawled to a halt before us.

Amid the ensuing silence Katharine glared at me in shock. "DeWitt…what…what did you do to him? Those men back there!?"

Blood and brains dripped downward into the piping below, the bird protruding black and greasy from the dead man's eye socket. I looked to him and the aghast women.

"I'm not quite sure." I answered, beginning to move anew down the dingy catwalk. "I'm still trying to figure that out myself. Grab his rifle and his ammo. We might need it. Just keep in mind what I said. We've got to figure out how to get off this thing before we get out to sea."

Katharine looked to me, distressed at the latest corpse I'd created. "Mr. DeWitt…you must answer me! What kind of _witchcraft_ is this!?"

"It's not witchcraft." I answered, glancing towards my dazed, woozy daughter. "The birds...they've got to be a tear. A breach in reality like Tesla's, but gained from imbibing a draught."

"A _draught_?" Katharine said, glancing toward my daughter with alarm.

Elizabeth had been keeping pace but now leaned against eyes closed against a stiff aluminum brace. "You okay?" I asked.

"No." She said before turning her head my way. "But I think…I think you're right. I've been feeling these pains, every time you've…you've done that. We saw…the other night we saw Morgan and Laslowe sharing something…but thought it was some drink until I felt it. Then the in the Bowery, you asked how I knew." For the first time since she'd taken the blow her eyes steadied upon me. "That's how I knew…I felt it…just like I'd felt Wardenclyffe." She swallowed. "Where did you get them?"

"One of Nick and Ciro Terranova's lackeys. A guy named Mose."

"This is crazy, Booker. What does it mean?" Elizabeth answered.

"It means something else is afoot here…something we've not understood." Her words rang in my head. " _Laslowe and Morgan_?" As I spoke his name I remembered the guy's office, the bottles seated in his bowls of ice. Had he too been getting supernatural bubbly from the Morellos?"

As we moved forward she began to speak, but we heard the shouts of men approaching. Ducking through an unlocked door as they passed, we turned to discovery an unmanned infirmary. Regarding my sorry state, Elizabeth sat me upon the examination table as Katharine peered through the crack of the door to ensure the threat abated. "Gather towels and bandages." Elizabeth said, leaning upon the counter. From her spying place at the door Katharine turned, retrieving towels and bandages from glass cabinets, while Elizabeth struggled with the glass-paned doors to a medicine locker.

"You're the one who should be up here, Elizabeth." I said, standing with a stumble but making it to her side.

"No…I'm fine." She said, focusing hard upon the bottles. "Sterile water and ethyl alcohol."

"Ethyl, huh?" I examined the label. "That will do." Relieving her of the jars, I mixed them together.

"Booker!" She exclaimed before nearly toppling anew. "I…have to clean those scratches out!"

" _You_ need to sit down." I said, setting them upon the counter before leading _her_ to the table. "And that's not why I asked for the alcohol in the first place." From the cupboard top I retrieved my makeshift cocktail and I took a healthy swig. "There." I coughed and wheezed. "Give me a minute and…and…I'll be ready."

"So, we are out of the frying pan but surely in the fryer." Katharine fretted, her hair down about her shoulders with arms clasped nervously about herself. If she were disdainful of my indulgence, she didn't show it. From first we'd met I'd found the woman appealing though a bit pretentious. With my heart troubled by what had developed between me and my daughter, I'd been preoccupied. Now something was different. She was… "What is to become of us? We're a thousand feet in the air, with who knows how many soldiers between us and the controls, even if we could work them!"

"Why do I always have to be the one who comes up with the plan?" I said, surprised at her appeal. Having overcome my sequestration, Elizabeth had repatriated the alcohol and stood, sterilizing indelicately my abrasions and cuts. "Okay, fine…" I winced. "We either kill every soldier and crewman on the ship or kill the ship."

"You mean without killing ourselves?" Katharine questioned.

"That would be preferable." I said, trying not to dwell overly long upon her. She was, after all, a married woman.

We left the Infirmary on edge, finding ourselves obviously now in the regime of the airship's crew compartments where the opening of every distant door portended our final fight. Spying an access tube going up to our impending left, I motioned toward it. "I've an idea."

"You do?" Katharine answered.

"Yes." My eyes turned upward. "We've got to get off this deck. This trunk must lead through the gas bags, perhaps even to the top of the craft. If it's even half a bit like the _First Lady_ , there should be relief valves there. If we vent gas from their lift cells, they'll have no choice but to descend."

"And if…it we vent too _much_?" Elizabeth asked.

I smirked, pondering anew her bloodied hand. "Then we'll descend even faster."

Up into the support structure we went and not a moment too soon. Whether by happenstance or drawn by the hideous screams from the stern, another squad of hands came racing. Silently we hung upon the rungs as their black boots clattered below, Elizabeth struggling to hold on at my heels as they passed not twenty feet beneath Katharine's wafting hem. As she began to slip, I caught her. I was _never_ going to let her go again. Soon there was only the sound of blowing air and we continued upward.

My only experience in the bowels of airships had been in Columbia, so as we climbed between lacquered fabric bags the lack of anything resembling machinery or passenger compartments was disorienting. As far as I could tell, _Engels_ was nothing more than a thousand-foot long tube of hot air. We emerged onto a lamp-lit upper catwalk, unsurprised now to find it nothing at all like the _First Lady's_ steel cylinder of a lifting core. There was one thing that was surprising.

Coming down the catwalk from astern was an unsuspecting crewman, one who hailed me before he came clearly into the lone lamp light. Dressed like the rest of _Engels'_ killers in black turtleneck, pants and boots, he froze upon recognition. "Helmut?"

Before he could follow that suddenly horrified expression with words, I was on him, ramming my fist into his face. At the force of it his feet came off the ground and he careened unconscious into a billowing lift bag.

"Booker!" Elizabeth cried, lowering herself to kneel beside his limp form.

"What do you expect me to do, Elizabeth? Throw them a party? In case you haven't noticed, they're trying to kill us."

She shot me a furious look before continuing to pour over his body. "He's alive." She said.

"Too bad. You will make it, won't you?" I asked, tipping her chin up such that her eyes met mine. Though she seemed to focus upon me, I could still tell she'd not fully recovered.

"Yes." She answered. She was better than me, I thought…able to empathize with men who'd meant to be her end. I hoped the son of bitch rotted in hell.

From the ladder Katharine poked her head, eyes instantly wide at the man prostrate upon the grating. Struggling with the hem of her dress where it had caught upon the railing, she emerged into our thrumming twilight and looked about in confusion. "What…what is this place?"

"We're at the top of the ship." I answered, following piping that rose up into the aluminum framework. Amid the conduits a smaller ladder connected upward to a hatch, alongside signage I had no clue as to the meaning but was certain any pronunciation of would involve copious amounts of spit. "And I think this must be it…relief valves." Upward I rose, finding toggles nestled alongside the necks of two six-inch pipes. Taking one in hand, I threw it over to pain in my side. Outside I heard a hissing commence. Having done the deed, I opened the hatch above to a vault of brilliant stars.

With flashbacks to Monument Island's terror, I forced myself to poke my head out anyway. For a moment I froze. The breeze was strong but not overpowering. "Come on. We can make our way aft on the top and open the vents along the way!"

"Outside!?" Katharine exclaimed in horror, the woman's hand half covering her mouth. "But we'd be blown off!"

"No, I don't think so. At least not at this speed. For some reason just crawling."

In short order Elizabeth followed and I set my grasp firmly about the girl's waist. Katharine followed, the three of us balancing precariously against the bluster at the zeppelin's apex. A rope was tied off every fifty feet to the outer skin/ Looking back into the hatch, I spied in a niche smaller ropes with "D" Rings about their ends and a harness upon the others. "Here, but these on." I reached down to extract the first, acquiring in turn one for each lady. About us the sky was cloudless, and though early morning that black firmament of stars still glimmered overhead, almost a reflection of the town lights below. "That's Connecticut to the north."

"It's beautiful." Johnson said, peering across the black gulf to our left and testing again her lifeline for security. It wasn't the only thing she tested, for in that moment she took my arm in hand. While Elizabeth was looking about in trepidation, Katharine thanked me with a smile.

"Make sure you stay to the center path." I said, her grip slipping until we held hands.

Though still nervous, she looked to me and grinned. "Yes, Mr. DeWitt."

Despite it being summertime, it was cool aloft, the breeze only reinforcing wind-borne discomfort as we moved along. Far to the south I could see the flash of thunderbolts dancing the horizon in a distant line of storms. Every fifty feet where the rope was anchored we detached then reconnected, which for me was convenient for each of those points was associated with a hatch. One by one I opened them and climbed down their ladders, throwing the valves below and venting the contents with a hiss into the night air. After the fifth a horn began to blare from somewhere forward. "I guess its working."

As I climbed back out, I heard the rush of boots upon metal below, saw a crewman stop, turn and shine up the ladder with a hand light. Seeing me, his eyes widened. "Gregor!" He shouted down the catwalk to a man out of sight.

"Dammit!" I exclaimed, dropping all the way down. The turtleneck looked at me and shouted again. From down the gangway I heard commotion and the sound of feet. "Oh, the hell with it!" As he jostled the light in hand to swing as a weapon, I whipped my arm out and let him have the birds. Screeching and screaming, the demonic beasts exploded from the darkness of the passage and tore into him. As he knocked them away I gave him the butt of my repeater in the brow, sending him down and out. To my right _Engels'_ goons were growing closer, emerging from that infinite succession of electric lights with all manner of makeshift weapons…none of them firearms. Seeing the fate of their friend, their Teutonic eyes were wide in caution. Still they kept coming. I raised the barrel of my weapon to them…four in total now. "Halten zie." I said, hoping they thought I might just be crazy enough to use it.

"Booker, what's going on!?" I heard Elizabeth cry from above.

Upon her distraction two of the hands lunged, bringing their clubs down upon the metal railing beside me, bouncing against the sheath of mesh that protected the hydrogen bags. Despite my enduring pain I dodged, sending one crashing to the grate with a blow to the side of the head and the other back with the barrel. As he backed away he dropped his crowbar…raised his hands in fists. Behind him the other two backpedaled. "Elizabeth, Katharine…run!" I bellowed, yet presently I heard the tap of boots descending the iron ladder.

Still holding the crewmen at bay, I turned head over shoulder…only to see Speer above with Steyr in hand, pointing it at the women as they alighted upon the deck. "Put down your gun or I shall kill your women, you barbarian."

From distant loudspeakers I heard an announcement in German. The men before me seemed to listen, though with eyes upon me and their napping comrade upon the deck. Cautiously I placed the length of my Triple R upon the ground. Suddenly _Engels'_ men leapt, but as they did so I clenched my fist and fire burst to life about it in a fearful explosion, illuminating the space and silver-lacquered bags suspended beyond the mesh. "You kill them and I swear to God I'll blow this ship to hell!" I shouted. "The _only_ thing that will reach the ground will be your burnt bones!" Back from my combustion Speer leaned, eyes wide, the reflecting of my bright pyre mesmerizing in his little round glasses. Elizabeth winced. Katharine's eyes and mouth were agape. "Hand them over!"

"You are not going anywhere." He hissed, lowering his gun toward me.

"Ah, ah ah!" I said, reaching out towards the bags to the collective gasp of all. Quickly he held the pistol upward in raised hand and removed his finger from the trigger, blood drained from that already pasty countenance. Katharine and Elizabeth hastened to my side, taking refuge behind my shoulders and flaming appendage.

"It seems as though we are at an impasse." Speer noted, moving cautiously to the company of his men.

"No we're not, dipshit. We want off. Me and the girls. And Tesla and the rich guys, too."

"You'd have to think me a fool to agree to such a thing, even if I could." Again I brought my flaming hand closer to the bags, heightening its blaze. In terror Speer jolted and raised his other hand, gesturing with a nod the hands to do the same. "I cannot grant this request. Captain Zinn…he must do so."

"Then you'd better take us to him fast, 'cause I'm not sure how much more patience I have."

#

With my fist aflame we made our way down and through the maze of catwalks and ladders, Elizabeth and Katharine both looking at the apparition glowing about my hand like it was the gate of hell. _Hell_ it was, almost. It was _magic_ , or so close to it there was no difference. And the Terranovas had wanted to give it to these goons. By the time we reached the passenger compartments and main passageway, sirens and horns were going off throughout the vessel. I gestured Speer and his men to drop down the ladder ahead and followed, Triple R in uncrispy hand.

Having alighted upon the deck, they drew their clubs as I dropped to the floor. I lit the wall beside me on fire. Screams commenced. Up above Elizabeth and Katharine shrieked. Speer's men rushed to batter the flames out with arms and bodies. In the smoky aftermath of the hallway the Germans were shaken, none more so than Speer. "Try that again and I'll torch the whole place…starting with you, Herr Weinerschnitzel."

"You must know you do not leave here alive." He hissed. "Did you drink of the Vigors whilst you were spying upon us in the barn?"

"What's a _Vigor_?" I asked.

Realizing he couldn't shoot me before I brought his world down, he scowled. "What it is…is of no matter to you, fool. I will personally see that you do not see the next sunrise."

"If we don't, then neither do you, asshole." I growled. "Take us to Zinn."

He led us aft, back through the crew compartments and infirmary that had sheltered us, past the ladder we'd originally escaped upon. Through the hatch below it we entered another short passage, emerging into a broad hundred-foot wide cargo bay, a great open chamber over arched with trusses, bomb bay doors at its center and open to the light-dotted landscape below. About the space dozens of hands dashed, connecting netted crates and pallets of equipment to hoists as claxons blared. Around the rectangular pool of black I could see Edmonton beside Zinn, the Captain barking orders as village and church steeples grew precariously closer. At our entry the frantic deckhands loading nets about us stopped, seeing my hand ablaze and Speer and his lackeys before us until the entire chamber was reduced to a dead silence. A few of them went for their Repeaters. I wasn't particularly afraid and let my hand burst to a near inferno. "Put the guns down or I'm going to make this cigar go up like a Roman candle!"

Across the opening I saw Morgan and Astor pushing a crate toward the well alongside a perspiring Tesla, conscripted labor. "DeWitt!" Tesla cried, but then he saw Katharine.

"What have you done, fool!?" Zinn raged at Speer, eyes malignant even as they turned upon me from across the rectangle. Two of his underlings brought their repeaters up, but with the gold-ringed sleeve of his black coat he knocked their weapons down. "Nein, dunkoff!"

Just to make my point, I let the flames whip even higher, seeing orange and yellow gyration dancing like the midnight sun in all those red Bolshevik eyes. "I hear you people don't believe in God." I yelled, loud enough to be heard across the bay. "How'd you like to get an find out once and for all!?"

"Booker…what…what is that?" Elizabeth whispered. "How are you doing…"

"That…is not necessary." Zinn answered, holding his hands up now as if that stupid gesture would placate me. "However you are sustaining your trick, douse that flame."

"I'll douse it by shoving it up your ass." I answered, gazing about at the mesmerized men.

From behind Zinn Edmonton approached, Ciro and Mose emerging from the shadows. Ciro seemed in awe, but not Mose. "Whad are y'all lookin' at?!" He cried in disgust. "That ain't nothing but a party favor he's using!" At his suggestion I reached out and with the fire billowing from my hand lit a box next to me on fire. Screams commenced and men dashed with canvas and tarps toward it, battling the flames, finally pushing its rectangular bulk out through the cargo hatch, a flaming meteorite smashing into the trees below.

"You have made your point!" Zinn exclaimed, chastened, eyes castigating Ciro's minion.

"So…" You took a little swig of the _Kiss_." Mose said, almost appreciatively from across the expanse. "Can't stomach that stuff myself, but then again, it didn't much matter. Them Vigors don't last forever, you know. We'll just wait you out."

"Don't look like you have time to 'wait me out,' Scarlotti." I hollered across the forty-foot void. "And I haven't heard a single shot all night. Guess is that you know what happens if you use 'em," those guns you keep waving around." Below I could see houses coming into view…a whole town going by with people coming out to point from lamp lit streets.

"Who needs guns?" Mose said. From behind him and Zinn's echelon, deck hands brought crates of bottles, sharpshooters laying down their weapons to look at the new raven-topped decanters in their hands. "Your game with the birds back in the pens, DeWitt…pretty impressive…I saw the results. And you may have the _Kiss_ , but two can play at that game…or two dozen."

Taking a _Murder of Crows_ in hand, Mose gestured Zinn's crewmen to do the same. Following his lead, they unstopped their bottles and drank. Instantly faces turned green, and in near unison they wretched and spat the stuff out, some vomiting explosively for the cherry on top. Mose and Ciro had worked me over good, but as Zinn's goons tossed their cookies it was poetry to watch

"Booker!" Elizabeth shouted, and I turned to Speer lashing out with his pistol butt. Deftly I stepped aside, grabbed him by the collar and throat. My hand turned white hot and he screamed, neck and head and beady-ass glasses exploding in flame. With a fire-streaked twist I cast his burning carcass into the streets below. Having been buoyed by his charge, his four lackeys reconsidered…backpedaling slowly away from us and their sure cremation.

I heard Mose then screaming, turned to see him standing on the other side of the open hatches with arm outstretched. At first I heard a chatter, much like a crowd, until I realized it was no crowd.

It was a _Murder_.

From the gantries and cranes and trusses hundreds of black birds dove at me. At the last moment I held out my arm and screamed, the birds bursting into flame as they spiraled in. Roasted husks and beaks pelted my body and the ground. Beside me Elizabeth and Katharine dove for the cover of crates and tarps as the fleshy arrows peppered the deck. Below now I saw the glint of wave tops and water. Loudspeakers blared. "Kapitän Zinn, Kommandant Ludler! Suchscheinwerfer eines anderen Luftschiffs, das von Nordwesten her schließt!"

Across the gap Zinn's eyes turned…as well as every other man's within earshot. In horror. Toward us and the equipment he turned. "Ins Wasser...jetzt alles ins Wasser! _Schnell!_ "

I'd no idea for the words, but as his men started to push crates and pallets of Tesla's gear through the hatch I had a pretty good idea what they'd meant. I let them have the birds. As their screeches and calls echoed from my mind, getting closer, a freight train hit me from the side.

"You son of a bitch!" Mose bellowed, smashing me with fist in the cheek. Not tied to a chair this time, I swung about, facing off with him as Zinn's men dumped Tesla's empire piece by piece into the water below. "I should have killed you when I had the chance!"

"What the hell are you doing, Scarlotti!?" I wailed as he lunged at me. "Do you really think they were just going to dump you off on Gardiner Is…!?"

Mose swung, and from the corner of my eye I saw Ciro approach then think better of it…while Edmonton looked coolly on. With my commandeered rifle upon the ground nearby, I drove my fist into the thug's side and he grunted, eyes bugging out as he stumbled back. I hit him in the chest with a left then his face. Backward he stumbled. "Stay down!" I yelled.

He threw his arm out and a bird hit me in the side, followed by another. As they came on a sheath of lightning flashed besides us and I saw Elizabeth, sweat pouring from her brow as her bloody hands swept the air. Before he could summon more, I snatched the rifle and bashed his teeth in. Stumbling backward Mose hit a crate, eyes rolling white in his bloody face before he slumped to the ground. He didn't move.

We're going to crash!" I heard Elizabeth cry out, whatever apparition she'd conjured now gone. Wiping jaw with the tattered remains of my white cuff, I found new blood and her eyes outside in terror at water and oncoming beach.

Over the side Zinn's men pushed the cradle holding the Tear Machine, the thing crashing upon the tidal flats as _Engels_ caught the first wave tops. Water sprayed the aft of the bay, but then several hands who'd mounted the rafters released the great ship's cranes from their mounts. Through open hatch and doors and deck they crashed, tons of weight liberated, taking the bay doors with them. _Engels_ lurched into the air.

"Over the side!" I bellowed, running for Elizabeth and Katharine. "We won't get another chance!"

The woman held on to Elizabeth for dear life, emerald eyes terrified. "I cannot swim!"

Seizing the moment, Astor turned and punched one of the Bolsheviks in the face, sending him stumbling backward. Behind him I saw even Morgan scrapping, and getting the better of the lanky turtleneck upon him. Where Zinn was, I'd no idea, but behind me I heard the cock of a Steyr and froze. I raised my hands, turning to find Edmonton there, weapon in hand. Ciro was at his side, kicking motionless Scarlotti with his toe to see whether the man was still alive. "Valiant attempt. DeWitt, is it?"

"Yeah." I said. Feeling Elizabeth at my side, I moved her to imagined safety behind me.

"You've single-handedly demolished the best the Red Armada has to offer. I hope you're proud of yourself."

"If you're going to shoot me, just get it over with. Mind you, you'd better not miss…" I held my hand up, aflame once more.

"You…you have a choice." Elizabeth said from behind. You don't have to do this. Not again."

"Not… _again_? Do I know you from somewhere?" Puzzlement lingered upon the fake Brit's visage, but then his vision steeled. "It doesn't matter. Go." He said with a toss of head toward the open, water-spilling bay. Sandy blond hair waving in the morning breeze, he de-cocked his pistol. "While you still can."

"What do you mean, go?" I asked, seeing beside us Katharine, equally disconcerted. "You're just letting us…go?"

Edmonton leaned into me, smiling at the women. "You're a very lucky man, DeWitt, to have people in your life who love you. Perhaps someday we might meet again. When I pull the trigger, you _must_ jump, else I'll be given away and this whole gambit for naught."

"Given…away? Who…who are you?" Elizabeth asked.

"A gentleman, my Lady…doing his duty for King and Country." He answered with a smirk. "And it would not do well for that to be _compromised_ …at least not yet. Now go."

Terranova grasped his shoulder and glared into Edmonton's eyes, turning then to me with malefic intent. "You may be good with him, DeWitt, but soon as I put my soles back on pavement you are _dead_."

Edmonton studied our mutual antipathy before putting pistol to the man's head. Katharine and Elizabeth shrieked anew at the crack, and into the blackness the thug tumbled away, blood spiraling from his emptying head. I hadn't expected that, and after the initial shock nodded appreciatively to our benefactor. With tip of head Edmonton responded, gesturing for us to follow. In quick succession he pulled the trigger anew, sending rounds into water. Grabbing the women I took them over the side after. How high we were above the water I didn't know…it seemed a few feet but in the darkness was quite impossible to tell.

We hit hard.

After a few disoriented, drowning moments Elizabeth and I struggled to the surface, finding with a predawn faintness cutting the horizon to the east. Of Katharine I saw nothing save a burble in that black mirror. Instinctively I dove again, finding beneath the waves not only her panicked form but that of a dimly seen rescuer. Before me Tesla broke the surface, Katharine half-drowned and thrashing in his arms. To the east _Engels_ limped away, broken, trailing smoke, its gradual ascent revealing the twinkling coastal towns of Peconic Bay scattered across the now visible horizon. In its wake it left crates and equipment strewn over the muddy flats like giant horse droppings, the ruins of the Tear Machine awash upon the nearby sandy shore.

"Booker!" I heard from the shallows beside me, and as we trudged the sandy bottom Elizabeth threw herself upon me, crying with glee, "We're alive…we're _alive_!" Against the gentle wash I snatched the woman into my embrace, feeling her waterlogged form so warm small and eager against me. After a moment in which I'm certain she struggled to breath I relented, drawing back to look upon her lissome face. Despite the horror of the evening she was smiling at me, smiling as only a girl could do. I wasn't prone to tears, though after nearly losing her again they weren't far away. As her hand rose to my cheek, I realized I was smiling, and that her tears had no such inhibitions.

Brushing her wet hair aside, I kissed her.

It was a long kiss and deep in the early morning darkness, and beneath my caressing hand it I felt the tremor run through her frame…a frame so much like Annabelle's. So much like her mother's. In that moment I realized with utter clarity what was transpiring…and how dangerous the precipice we were on. We parted to one another's gaze, her blue contentedly barely visible before me. "I'm sorry for what I said at Morgan's. It was…so thoughtless of me."

"I'm sorry I reacted like a child. It won't happen again." I answered, still feeling her intoxicating closeness. She leaned in and hugged me anew, closing her eyes in our mutual chill. I'd known her perhaps a month, been with her close unto death on so many occasions. Maybe I was lost, but I would not… _could_ not be the downfall of her. Soon I caught voices calling from down the beach. Mutually we withdrew, lingering in the moonlight, reluctant to break our intimacy…so close to one another the steam mingled as it rose from our bodies. Elizabeth straightened and composed herself best she could.

Looking over shoulder, I could see _Engels_ even darker in the east, though now in silhouette against the pastel of blue. A pair of spotlights trailed brilliant from the northwest.

"What is that?" Elizabeth asked with an unsteady balance on the sand, a mix of worry and curiosity in her voice. Her hand, I noticed, had found mine anew.

"Another airship, I suspect." Tesla answered, holding Katharine Johnson in arm as she coughed at his side. Though the woman was distraught, in his presence she did not appear entirely miserable.

"Then…it's over?" Katharine asked, looking up to him then to me.

"For now, I suspect yes." Tesla said, eyes following the craft's beams as they searched the tops of distant trees. "With any luck they'll run the bounders down, if they can find them, that is. It's hours from Lakehurst, though…I'm impressed the Navy could bring a warship to bear so quickly."

"Tesla!" I heard Morgan cry, he and Astor coming to a stop before us, bent over and catching their breath on the gently washed beach. That a man of Morgan's age could run so fast was enviable. "My God, it is you! What magnificent devilry was that!?

Tesla shook his head and glanced my way. "Not my devilry… _his_." Both tycoons looked to me.

Still preoccupied, I ignored them and walked to Nikola and the woman beside him with Elizabeth in tow. As I did they looked me over, uncertain whether I was man or monster. Looking toward my daughter, I realized that perhaps I was both. It was getting colder outside. Or perhaps it was simply that we were all soaked to the bone. "Sorry about the tuxedo, Mrs. Johnson. I'll have to see about getting it repaired."

After a moment she and Tesla burst out laughing, though having sensed my mood Elizabeth's relief had turned to concern. Unseen by any of them, a pair of headlights appeared above the dunes.


	19. Matinecock Point

**19\. Matinecock Point (Tuesday August 6th, 1912)**

"Are you absolutely _positive_ the jewelry case _burned_?"

"The _woodworking_ shop burned…and Elmer and Roswell with it. Both were gunned down in cold blood by the bastards." From the driver's seat a haggard Tommy Parsons' eyes caught mine after answering Elizabeth, tan jacket undone, it and his white shirt beneath spattered with grime and blood. Upon his leg a bandage was wrapped and flapping in the automobile's slipstream about a torn pantleg, one that evidenced a large, caked bloodstain. The Model V continued westward under a sun rising behind us, shot up, rattling over the dirt and stretches here and there of pavement, its door about to fall off. "Mr. Tesla was still pouring over the place when we left, though the Sheriff's men had roped it off. The phone lines were off the hook from all the papers calling, and I hear tell from Harper that President Roosevelt has asked to convene a special session of Congress. War may indeed be in the offing."

"Newspapers and war won't bring back it back." Elizabeth wept, looking up from the back seat with reddened eyes. "They won't bring it or _any of them_ back!"

My eyes turned ahead as a car passed on our left, a family out for a drive, leaving a billow of dust drifting across us. Inside their red motor car they were laughing, blissfully unaware of what had transpired just miles away. And the case, as Elizabeth had said, was truly gone. I'd lost her…everything I'd kept of my wife, I'd lost.

It has been a surprise when the lights had appeared over the beach, courtesy, we soon found, of the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department. It was from a wounded Deputy Kinchloe our small band had learned the final scope of the massacre at Wardenclyffe and how badly the Sheriff's responding night shift had been mauled. Still reeling from the carnage, he and Harper's bloodied survivors had received a tip from the county seat as to the routing of _Engels,_ by whom the Sheriff could only say was an anonymous caller. Weary as the sun peeked above the Atlantic, they'd found the six of us waterside and suffering from exposure. Given bullet-ridden blankets and coffee against the morning chill, the sullen men had taken us to their cars and eventually the smoking ruin of Wardenclyffe itself. Along the way, our story had come out…minus the more improbable details. As we drove, I kept looking back to her inconsolable wreck slumped against the door, wishing I could just hold her and feel her warmth.

"How…how much further?" I asked over the rush of the morning air outside.

"Perhaps an hour…" Tommy answered stoically as grass and trees flew by. "Mr. Morgan Junior's estate is on what used to be known as East Island, just offshore from Glen Cove." I noticed then the sudden purse of his lips…the darkening of his facade. "Mr. DeWitt…I do not wish to be rude, but I feel it my duty to inform you that…that I am aware of your peculiar relationship with your daughter."

"Relationship?" I said, Elizabeth's red eyes darting toward the man as though lightning had struck. "What are you…talking about, Thomas?"

"Do spare me any evasions. I've spoken to the both of you now, and 'Miss Comstock' seemed not to know the filial details of what you'd mentioned to me. She did, however, confide that the two of you were in love." He turned back to the road, passing a blond boy and girl running alongside us with not a care in the world. "You needn't worry…I shall exercise discretion _if_ you agree to my terms, particularly since the matter of your continued employment at Wardenclyffe has…resolved itself."

"Please, Mr. Parsons, before you pass judgement, listen to what he has to say." Elizabeth implored, coming forward from her repose with the lay of her hand upon the man's shoulder.

"What I _judge_ is the _man_ , not you, my Dear. The _one_ who is taking advantage of his _daughter_ in the most egregious fashion. Mr. DeWitt…" He said, turning to me with a stern look as we slowed at a crossing. "For the service you've rendered Mr. Tesla this evening, I shall look the other way and let the two of you depart in peace…but know that had this…corruption…from Europe not laid waste to so many irreplaceable lives and achievements, the Suffolk County Sheriff would have been bayside last night _not_ for your benefit but for your _incarceration._ I give you these terms. Be gone from Mr. Morgan's estate by morning. With the tumult, I should think it a reasonable result for a man and woman to depart, and doubt many will take up any gossip. But if you remain afterward, I shall be forced to appeal to higher authorities."

"Thomas…" I groaned. "You don't under…"

"I understand _well enough_ and do not wish to hear further of this fetid matter. Please, now…if you will…allow me to drive in _peace_."

Save for the rustling of the bullet-riddled top covering Tommy's vehicle, the remainder of the trip was abjectly silent. As we drove onward the road bumped and veered through tree-lined woods and field, passing through King's Park. Huntington and Oyster Bay and a handful of other hamlets. Lacking any way to get through to this man I shuttered my eyes, realizing from that moment I'd first seen her in the tower it had been fated to come to _this_. But how could I have _known_? And barring that, how could I _not_ be brought low by her charms?

As we sat disgraced, Elizabeth placed her hand upon mine from around the seat. I looked at its tight bandage, touched her fingertip before wondering what might have happened to her thimble. Meeting her gaze over my shoulder, she winced but those red eyes smiled.

Matinecock Point was a key on the northwestern coast of Long Island, a prodigiously expensive tract of land just north of the town of Glen Cove overlooking the waters I'd gotten to know with Mose's boys the night before last. Passing through the midday town proper, we turned off its less than busy main drag for a north running byway. Presently the chatter of the vehicle was joined by a loud commotion, carrying across the waters that flanked a sandy isthmus ahead. Once upon its north side we were greeted by a stone gatehouse. Before its black gates seven or eight automobiles gathered along the pavement sides, the occupants barking and badgering the attendant guard. Having been content to accost the man and each other, at our approach the men in white shirts and ties turned, sallying suddenly our way as a frenzied mob and much to the detriment of their hats. As the unlucky ones retrieved their headcover from the ground the questions began, brayed loudly like a pack of donkeys. Against the rumbling of Parson's automobile their queries were hard to make out. One lunged through the open back window at my daughter. Having not been so assaulted before, Elizabeth recoiled.

"Hey, you, Mister…who are you?! What happened to your automobile and what are you doing here at Morgan's?" One lanky reporter cried out, pen and paper in hand. Behind him a man struggled with a large camera and a flash pan. As his partner fumbled with his device, he seemed intent to block our way. "Were you at the fight out at Radio City last night?!"

The gatekeeper came forward, pressing the man backward as Tommy spoke. "Two guests for Mr. Morgan, James."

"Right, right, Mr. Parsons. Back you detestable vultures, get back! Good to see you safe and sound."

"It is good to be so." Thomas answered with the tip of his hat. To our side a flash went off, causing some of the men clawing our dirt stained window to look about and sending a clutch of white waterfowl that had been investigating the troupe's gastronomical leavings to flight. Behind me Elizabeth winced, blinded by the pyrotechnics. Now more than irritated, I threw Parson's door open and ran the man down, taking his camera and smashing it to the ground.

"Hey that's assault and battery, Bub!" He cried out, but as he got up with a mind to come after me, I straightened to my full height. The rest backed off. I was covered in blood and surely looked a fright.

"It's going to be bloody murder if you do that again, jackass." I answered, feeling my hand burning. For a moment the mob of them seemed to consider again his defense, shouting and cajoling, but as my hand grew hotter to a man they suddenly looked as though they'd seen death itself staring them in the face. Ahead James opened the gates. With my gazed still deadly upon them, I climbed into the car and we trundled off.

The blitz of reporters was quickly replaced by the rattling of Parson's car over a stone bridge of three long arches. To the north down a thin waterway I could see the Sound, and to the south across the pond the rooftops of Glen Cove's elegant homes amid the north Long Island woods. Heading east now, the ground broke from thin pine to sparse grassland, hardly more than sand. Alongside the road trees came, bracing our journey like soldiers lining the sides of a procession. Those trees turned to copse and dark, winnowing the midday sun with the song of birds and wind in the treetops while the road turned north in a long arc. Above the foliage I could discern the eaves of a three-story edifice of brick perhaps two hundred feet long. Neat, white-framed, black-shutter bracketed windows dotted the bright red frontage of the main house, nine in all, while a separate wing extended from it to the east. Atop it the white roof was spotted by black-shuttered dormers. A second building, smaller but of the same construction, lay further that way behind another line of trees.

"That was quite interesting. I've never seen them react like that before."

"They've never met me." I answered, still fuming but also taken aback at my sudden rage.

Thomas, I saw, was examining my hand…perhaps unconsciously I was cradling it, but I worried he'd seen something I'd not. "For your edification, Mr. Tesla has made it a point to visit Matinecock on several occasions over the last year. Although having a lesser interest in Tesla R.C., Mr. Morgan Junior has been a loyal backer alongside his father, and the manor's placement here on Long Island has made Jack eminently more accessible for Mr. Tesla than Manhattan." Despite his circumspection of my appendage, Tommy had yet to look me again in the eyes and it drew a pit deep in my stomach.

We emerged from the curve to a long approach to the manor, the road again lined by trees and fields to our sides which after a quarter mile gave way to manicured lawn. About us we were surrounded by groomed shrubs and gardens. A small army of groundskeepers worked the broad lawns between.

Inside four red brick pillars the gates to the courtyard were open. Tommy pulled forward and before a white-pillared, triangle-capped portico we stopped. Sensing we were to leave, I stepped out and aided Elizabeth in her exit. Parsons remained in the driver's seat, the mangled automobile still puttering as servants emerged from the door above to open the boot and extract boxes of clothing.

"I wish you the best." He said curtly, and as Morgan's retainers absconded with the containers sat there looking upon us with those steel eyes. Before me Elizabeth stood, morose, my hands upon her shoulders the breeze catching the tangles of her hair. "But now I must attend to Mister Tesla. I expect he will need a friend and it is a long drive back." His brow suddenly knit and he seemingly wished to say more. I understood him. Both men of action, we'd been through fire together…yet this bitter ending it was to be. He swallowed and put the car into gear.

As his vehicle carried back south down the tree-braced pavement, Elizabeth turned to me with those battered eyes, shuddering as the gate keeper shut the fence. Scratching gray hair, the man replaced his similarly colored wheel cap. Beyond that lone clank, the only sounds were those of the birds chirping and breeze whispering through the fence. "You okay?" I asked, taking her hand in mine.

She sighed and looked upward again, combing the immense frontage before us and wiping her emotion away. "No." She snuffled. "I feel…numb. How could he think so poorly of us?"

"We…we have to talk, Elizabeth." By the sudden shot of her bloodshot blue toward mine, she knew what I had to say. Unconsciously she shook her head. I glanced about. "Once we're in private."

At Thomas' largesse, our drive by at Hapgood's had allowed us to retrieve the presents Katharine had bestowed days before…days that seemed now like eons. Like Tommy, in our devastation we'd not bothered to change from our bloodied clothing...I was still in the rags of the tuxedo, she a sight in her tattered blouse and skirt. "This was new, wasn't it?"

Elizabeth glanced down at the sad remnants of her ensemble and nodded. "I found it at the store last Friday. It resembled what I was wearing when we first met. I…" She sighed. "I'd hoped you might have noticed."

"I noticed." By arm I led her up the low white steps, following the last of Morgan's employees who'd greeted our arrival. A pair of black double doors lay open at the top outlined in gold trim, a round knocker embossed with a lion upon each. A man in a dark coat, gray-striped trousers and pale white skin stood at the fore. "Good afternoon. Mr. DeWitt and Miss Comstock, I presume?"

"The same."

"Excellent. I am Henry Physick, Mr. Morgan's Head of Household." He continued in a British accent. "Mr. Morgan has requested that I see you to your respective rooms on the second floor of the West Wing to await the Sheriff's inquiry tomorrow. I and the staff have been informed as to your unfortunate travails, and Mr. Morgan's personal physician, Doctor Markoe, arrived half an hour ago to tend to the young lady and Mr. Morgan."

"He has?" Elizabeth asked with a weary glance my way.

"Indeed." Physick replied, cocking a salt and pepper eyebrow beneath similarly graying hair. "And Mr. DeWitt, should he so require."

At the butler's behest we entered a broad, wood-tiled foyer decorated with paintings and statuary, elegant yet not quite so resplendent as Morgan Senior's Manhattan redoubt. About its rectangular expanse hallways led off to right and left, while at its northside end a wooden stair spiraled upward along the right side. Quite flat with very short risers, the spindles holding the handrail were of ornately-carved wood. All about the wood paneling was of the finest craftsmanship, and spotless. Following the head servant to its apex, Elizabeth and I soon found ourselves before separate but adjacent rooms.

Within mine a gray-uniformed maid hovered near the bathroom over a steaming brass tub. She cast me a smile from a dark-skinned visage. "Good afternoon, Mr. DeWitt. I'm Emma. I fetched you a bath and the doctor said he'd be waiting downstairs after he is done with Mr. Pierpont and your lady friend. Your clothes…I took the liberty of laying a fresh outfit out upon the bed. I hope you don't mind."

"Thank you, uh, Emma." I said softly, still feeling the pain in my ribs as I inhaled. "That's much appreciated."

"I'm very sorry about what happened last night." She added, brow a furrow. "Those poor people. Mr. Jack…he said to give you as much time as you needed by yourself, so, if you need anything, just ring the bell." I didn't say much, and after a moment she patted me upon the shoulder and departed.

Beside the bed upon a nightstand I saw the ringer she was referring to, a small brass bell upon an intricately lathed and lacquered handle. Like the downstairs, the guest room was immaculately kept, and intricately paneled with cherry. The bed was made, a queen with a light red bedspread and matching posts. Against the warmth of early August, Emma had set the windows wide. As I looked outside at the lawn behind the mansion, above the tree line I could see the ripples across the distant Sound. A broad, rectangular reflecting pool lay below, enclosed by a framing wall and covered walkway. Its bottom was pale blue and caught the mid-day sky.

Realizing how heavy my heart was, I took to the bathroom and closed the door partway behind me, removing the tattered tux before stepping into the piping water. Against my aching chest it burned the pain out, the heat leaching the aches away. I wanted to cry out. Memories of the last days preyed upon me. Remembering how three weeks before we'd returned, the days that had passed with us each coming to terms with what had…and hadn't…transpired. The closeness we'd gained in our shared experience and the oddness of it all. How much she'd reminded me of Annabelle. Now with the Morellos banished and Wardenclyffe destroyed, it seemed the whole world was topsy-turvy.

I knew I had at least one broken rib, yet the fire that burned inside me I could still feel and somehow it numbed that pain. Slowly my hand rose from the water, pink skin upon it's back with the creases of a man nearing forty. I studied it, remembering the night and day before…the death it had brought…feeling still the Vigors' strange fire burning inside me. In my mind I heard still the distant screech of birds. I lay my head back and closed my eyes, wishing for my troublesome reveries concerning the girl next door that the damned Bolsheviks had just finished me off. When I opened them again, she was there.

I'd not heard her slip in, but there she was, dressed in a white terrycloth robe and matching slippers, her hair wet, wrapped up in a similarly white towel. I realized the water was cooler now, and I turned the ornate little brass tap on to bring needed warmth to the flaccid layer of suds.

"You…haven't started to clean up. Doctor Markoe is expecting you." She observed without energy and not quite looking upon me. I noticed as she spoke that her bandage had been changed. It was smaller and neat now, about her pinkie only. There was no more blood.

"I don't need to see any quack." I said nonchalantly, admiring how tendrils of her hair had slipped the towel, curling beside her ear and cheek. How effortlessly her brow and lashes rose and fell…her beauty asserting itself no matter what she wore nor what state she was in. "You…got that fixed?"

"Doctor Markoe is hardly a 'quack,' Booker. When Mr. Morgan Junior found out his father had been shot, he had him come in all the way from Manhattan. He finished with me half an hour ago with a bit of ether. I must say, I've not had stitches before and thought it would be more painful. Still, I'd…hoped you'd be there." She sat upon the side of the tub, looking sadly to me.

"I'm…I'm sorry." I answered, wishing that I had. "How does it feel?"

"It still hurts." She answered, lashes fluttering again as she studied indifferently the white bandage. "He says it will take a few months to fully grow over. Not that I'm expecting it to be any prettier. I wish I knew what happened to my thimble."

"You shouldn't have done that. Everything we've striven for could be for naught. I _saw_ the flash on _Engels_."

"They were going to _kill_ us, Booker." Her eyes turned to me with azure fire. "What was I _supposed_ to do? Just…pray? Besides, you _needn't_ be worried…my attempt was an utter failure. I couldn't even open a tiny one."

"Well, I sure as hell saw _something_ distract Mose." At my comment she was silent and I dunked my head, rubbing into it shampoo that smelled like mint. Afterward my eyes hung distant upon the green sliver of the Connecticut shoreline.

"You said…said we needed to talk." She said in a whisper, ignoring my mild barb. In the water her forefinger stirred absently, making ripples in the tub. She turned to survey the neatly made bed before closing her eyes. "I gather it is about what I expect."

"What do you know about men and women…together, Elizabeth?"

"I've read books." She said with soft indignence, still looking away before catching me back to me with a profiled glance. " _Lady Chatterley's Lover._ I'm not a child, you know."

Having not heard of the tome, I puzzled and continued on. "Thomas was right. I've been around enough to have heard upon occasion of…affairs…like this. My God, I never thought I'd be in one."

"They do not end well, is that what you mean?"

"No. They most certainly do not."

"Because…because of the children?" She whispered more than asked.

"Not to mention humiliation and _scandal,_ even if were there none. There are…laws. Fathers and daughters…they just don't…" I glanced up to her, straining to remind myself she _was_ my daughter. "You do _want_ children, don't you?"

I'd hardly seen her lips turn that morning but at there they did…the fleeting ghost of a smile. "I've dreams, sometimes. A little boy and girl in an undersea castle. Aren't women supposed to want children?"

"Yes, but to have children, a man and woman _must marry_. At least, if they are to be respectable and the give those brats a name."

"Marry, as in a church?"

"In a church. In front of all their family and friends…and God, if you will. It's sacred and usually the high point of a couple's life…their commitment to be the one and only for one another. How do you think that would go over when we were introduced with the same last name?"

"Did you marry _her_ in a church? With friends and family around?" As a breeze ruffled the sheer drapes, her eyes hung studiously upon mine.

"I already…told you that." I avoided. "Why would you think otherwise?"

"I don't know. At times you do seem at times to be rather…unconventional. And I've never seen a picture of your and mother's grand affair." Pausing, she drew the towel from her hair which fell wetly over her shoulder. High upon her temple I could see the nasty bruise. "We…we could have died, you know." She said as she studied her hand. "Here or in Columbia or…or some watery grave. Alone. And what use would have been morals or churches then?"

"Someone…someone will come along, Elizabeth. Someone who _loves_ you just as much as I do and will still be young with you when…"

Her hair tumbled further as her head tossed my way, brown tresses snaking over shoulder and incensed brow. "No. They won't! _No_ other man could give me what _you've_ given me…I mean, who _else_ has…has…has seen _Columbia_? Or been…been through the _tears_? Don't you _understand_? There is no ' _other man_ ' I want to be with! I don't know how, but when first I met you, in my heart it felt as though I'd…I'd known you a _thousand lifetimes."_

So earnest were those eyes that I pained to meet her words, but it had to be said. "In the past weeks, Elizabeth, has the thought crossed your mind that perhaps Comstock was _right_?"

"Right? About what?"

"About me being…maybe I _am_ your False Shepherd?"

"Booker…" She said face aghast. "How can you say that?"

"We cannot…cannot be together. Not ever." I continued to wash, and though I didn't look I saw from the corner of my eye the girl wipe silent tears away. Eventually she rose and walked out.

#

I wanted to slam the door but instead closed it quietly, as if I let my true emotions rage, I'd shatter the whole back wall of the house. Taking to my bed, I lay prostrate. With the coolness of my sodden hair over my forearm, I knew it wasn't his fault…and that he was utterly, coldly right. There was no future for us, and I was mortified for even musing there could be one.

I'd always dreamt of having parents who loved me, and in my tower…in my loneliness…I'd made up stories of who they were. Kings and potentates, regal queens and haughty princesses. Not usually the neighborhood drunk. But he was the one who'd come for me…risked his life for me, and he'd been a drunk because he'd lost everything in life that had mattered to him.

And that had been _me_.

At first, I'd been intrigued at how he'd tried to remain distant, incensed at how he'd planned to sell me off and amazed when I'd finally discovered _why_ he'd put the wall up between us. With all I'd known before blown away like dust in the wind, _he'd given_ me purpose and meaning in life. And that purpose was to be there for _him_.

The whole matter of how I'd come to know he was my father was somewhat nebulous, for the last I'd remembered the _Hand of the Prophet_ had been exploding behind and electricity surging through my body. Then, after what seemed impossible dreams of oceans and lighthouses and sunken cities, I'd awakened spent within his arms in the Bowery. Only later had the dark realization sunk in of all that had transpired…who he was…and how it had come to pass. Even after weeks, those memories still haunted my dreams…my fingertip. Had I thought they'd simply go away?

Upon the bed beside me I'd laid out a dress, one of shiny, powder blue satin and white lace about its open bosom. The waist was tight in a way I admired but perhaps a bit risqué for Manhattan high society, though a matching bow at its back and hem just above the ground added to its juvenile innocence. Like my handful of remaining trifles, it had sprung from one of Katharine's many boxes.

Resigned to the evening, I rose, and as I stepped into its skirt and drew it to my hips, its thin straps over my shoulders, I found my eyes vacant and lost in the mirror. Beyond my reflection, against a rippling horizon of verdant forest and brilliant sky I saw him upon the balcony next door in a shirt, black trousers and loosened bowtie, throwing pebbles. His brown hair ruffed in the sea breeze. Pulling it on, I tied the bow off behind me, my hair drier yet still undone, slipping to the drapes to watch his enterprise. One after another he threw those stones, eyes dark and watching as their ripples spread slowly outward in the pool below. Off its rectangular sides they bounced…crisscrossing endlessly in patterns ever new yet somehow ever the same.

Upon the dresser top a stack of letters caught my yearning eye. It took me a moment to recognize those mysterious emissaries from a bygone day, resulting in a sudden, unexpected elation that they were the _very_ same…and that somehow miraculously I'd _not_ lost them at the Bungalow or fire at Wardenclyffe. How could I not have noticed them before? The jewelry case we'd mourned, but _these_ had been my loss more than any mummified fingertip…little relics from my Mother's heart! With eagerness I took the aged envelopes in hand, thumbing through the sepia of their paper, the handwritten script addressing each letter to one _Annabelle Watkins_ upon each frontage.

Over the years the black ink had faded along with the paper, though not so much as to be smeared. Undoing the twine that bound the four missives, I took the first in hand and took to the side of the bed, sitting with a sigh and leg beneath. A slim, handsome note was inside, dated March 13th, 1891 and addressed to her.

" _Dearest Annabelle…_ "

As his words eased into my mind I smiled and closed my eyes, savoring them, hearing when I looked again this younger Booker whispering sweet nothings to my mother. To imagine he could have loved her so much, could have felt so carefree was charming, but to discover his gift with the written word was doubly surprising. In the month I'd known him, I'd not heard this man much less seen him take pen to paper in prose. The years, I suspected, had taken a toll upon his heart. It was a short note, however, and as I drew to its close, I found myself happy in the guilty pleasure I yet had a few undiscovered others. Then I read the last line and my heart stopped. Unable now to countenance what I'd read, I opened the next and then the one after to a growing sense of dread…and in the last discovered the damning truth. A knock came at the door.

"Yes?" I eked, secreting the missives behind me.

"Miss Comstock, it's Fanny Morgan."

"Oh" I yelped, retrieving my abandoned hairbrush. "Just…just a moment!" Into the top drawer of the dresser I sequestered the letters, straightening myself before the mirror before hastening for the door. Outside the elderly Mrs. Morgan stood alongside a middle aged yet modestly attractive middle-aged blonde I'd met briefly at the party at Morgan's.

"Elizabeth…" Gray haired Fanny Morgan said. "Allow me to introduce again Jane Morgan, _Jack's_ wife."

"Oh, _Fannie_ …you needn't be so formal. We did not get to chat the other night, but please call me _Jessie_ , Elizabeth." She quickly said with a warm grin, hands clasping mine. "When news reached us of what had happened in Manhattan, we were simply beside ourselves. We got back home as soon as quickly as we could." I produced a thin smile, at pains to keep my clawing desolation from becoming obvious. "It seems as though we have a small coterie here today. I hope you do not mind, but I've taken the liberty of having our staff plan a meal for our guests this evening…an informal thing, but something to assuage neglected stomachs. You and your guardian are of course invited."

"Dinner? For more than us? Might I ask who else shall be attending?"

Jessie cupped her hands together. "Hopefully Mr. Tesla and friends. After the awfulness, Pierpont and Jack couldn't see the poor man remaining in that ruin and saw to it both he and Mrs. Johnson were invited. Mr. Johnson has already telephoned and shall be joining later to fetch his wife within the hour, departing on the 'morrow."

"Oh." I answered, trying to preserve some decorum. "How…how lovely."

"And, of course, John and I…along with Frances, Doctor Markoe and Pierpont himself. We are set for eight this evening. I trust I've given you enough warning?"

"You have." I replied without eagerness, realizing that was but two hours away.

"Wonderful." She took me in, up and down. "Such a lovely dress…so…flattering…to your figure. Where, might I ask, did you get it?"

"Lord and Taylor." I answered, sensing her comment roundabout chastisement more than any approval. "But it was a gift actually of Mrs. Johnson, and unfortunately all that I had left. I'd hoped to thank her again."

"Then it should do…and you should come with us. We were just on our way to the East Wing to inform her of our dinner appointment."

#

The sun hung orange as we descended into Matinecock's foyer some hours later, warm rays shimmering through the grand windowpanes that overlooked the floor's surrounding marbles statues and busts, casting across the polished wooden tile in such a manner that it looked a pool of flame. Upon her husband's arm Katharine smiled discreetly at me, as if our errant desires had bound us together in some compact. My brow furrowed and I forced a disheartened smile.

"They're gathered out there, down along the highway beyond the drive like some pack of vultures." Robert observed as we alighted upon the shimmering wood. "Nearly stopped me from getting here to you. All of New York has heard that J.P. Morgan was kidnapped, by a Bolshevik warship nonetheless! Were it not for Matinecock's house security, we'd be absolutely overrun."

"But they let _you_ through, Dear? Did they not?" Katharine mused, the corner of her mouth turning wryly as she held her husband's arm. "Aren't you one of those _vultures_?"

Sidewise the man looked upon her and kissed her upon the forehead, and I saw in his eyes that which I'd not seen before. Beside me at the bannister they stopped and his placed the back of his forefinger against her chin. "My God, you are enchanting, Katharine…and I am so very glad you are safe. You are my life, you know. Without you…without you, I am nothing. Please, do not steal off on some foolish errand again."

Her earlier cunning faded suddenly, and she placed her head upon his chest. "I love you too, Robert. You too…you too are my life."

Feeling ambivalent, I stepped away into the sitting room.

"Heaven knows what might have happened should those fiends have succeeded!" Francis Morgan resounded as I arrived at Booker's side. Upon the Persian rug in middle of the Sitting Room he was standing, party to a conversation that predated my entrance. The woman's words drew eyes from those about the room. Together the elder Morgan and Frances had taken seats beside their son, while Jack Morgan and his wife held court within dark leather thrones beside the vacant fireplace. "Is there any word yet on their fate?"

With a glance toward his father, the younger Morgan set a bulbous sniffer of red wine upon the small table next to him. "I have telephoned the State Police, Sheriff's office and the War Department. As of yet, there is nothing. If they know something, they are not saying."

"Which likely means they got away." The elder Morgan huffed, dressed despite the recent ordeal in an immaculate black tuxedo and white shirt. Its shade matched bruises upon cheek and chin. "But how that is possibly when crippled, with an airship in such close pursuit boggles the mind."

"The jury is still out on that matter. An aerial pursuit might take hours or even days if dragged out across open ocean." The words had come from behind us. Expecting Doctor Markoe, I turned alongside Booker to find Robert Laslowe against the wall, well-coiffed and arms crossed.

Morgan Junior nodded as a servant added to his wine. "Then they'd best let us know soon as they can. This family has friends in Washington, and if the government believes for a moment that the kidnapping of a luminary such as my father can simply be swept under the rug…"

"No one has suggested such a course of action is being contemplated, and as you must have noticed on your way in, the papers have the story and shall not be forgetting it." The elder Morgan said, looking uncannily like his son in the evening light…in fact his hair was I could swear a shade _darker_. We should hear something by tonight, ore latest tomorrow morning."

Amongst themselves the men and their wives continued to banter. Feeling left out, my attentions naturally turned to him. I'd known Booker had been troubled after our talk, so when my arrival failed to gain his attention I imposed myself by bumping his shoulder. "Oh..." He said, startled, gnawing unconsciously his lower lip as he took me in. "This...uh, this is...new, isn't it?"

"Yes, Mr. DeWitt." I answered demurely, eyelids half closed as I held my hem, rocking on heels. "One of Misses Johnson's treats. Elegant yet cool for summer. Do...do you like it?"

"You…look beautiful, Miss Comstock." He managed, hand brushing hesitantly his brow. "Really..." He closed his eyes before looking away with a sigh. "Beautiful."

"Now that this is all over…" I whispered. "Do you think...do you think maybe we can spend some time together?" Only after I'd spoken did I realize that with all the people we knew dead, that was certainly how it _would_ be.

"When I get you to Paris...we'll have plenty." He'd remained distant as he spoke, and I was certain that very thought troubled his mind.

"Paris? Are the two of you planning on a trip? 'Tis a bit warm on the Continent this time of year."

Booker hadn't registered the sudden lull in the Morgans' conversation and his words had stood out. At Jane Morgan's query he looked up. "I…I had…promised the lady I would see her there. I'm not certain it is within our means now that Wardenclyffe has…"

"Been razed?" The elder Morgan answered. "And so many of your friends and colleagues along with it."

"Yes." He said to the gathering's silence, and I wondered if in Booker's mind Tommy Parsons counted as one of those casualties.

"Which is why I asked Tesla here, but it seems he has dutifully chosen to remain at Wardenclyffe despite my protestations. Perhaps well he should." With a glance I saw Robert Johnson patting his wife's hand, for she seemed somber and doubly so at the elder Morgan's mention the man wasn't coming. "But before dinner is served, we should get down to matters." He looked to Laslowe. "At Robert's advice, and I shall announce this later this week in Manhattan, I intend to buy Tesla out completely. This morning alongside the bay, Astor and I had a good conversation. The both of us, I must say, have not had such exhilaration in our entire adult lives. It is a sad thing, this matter that has transpired, but we owe it to those who have perished to rebuild the establishment, and _better_ than before. Tesla has proven something nothing short of _miraculous_ , even _world changing_. Now, it is well known that he favors the science over the management of his organization, and with Electrical Holdings in full ownership and command of Tesla R.C., we shall make leaps and bounds in bringing Nikola's inventions to the world! And after Bavaria, if the Bolsheviks yet have a stomach for war, I am certain that damned _Roosevelt_ and the Prussians will give it to them. And the first place the Army and Navy will come calling is to us and our power transmission and flying machines!"

"Indeed." Laslowe answered, stepping forward to my side. With the briefest sidelong consideration of my exposed décolletage, he continued. "We shall begin with the so-called North Tower, which shall become the seat of a new, _greater_ Radio City. And on the old Wardenclyffe grounds we shall preserve what is there and build it even grander."

"And with a platoon of dragoons to guard it!" The elder Morgan roared, lighting a cigar. "No more Huns to spoil our party!"

"Well, all of this talk of war is rather stifling, don't you think?" Jesse Morgan said. Her eyes turned from the gathering to me. "Before dinner begins, I was hoping a favor to ask of you, Miss Comstock."

I felt my hand slip to my bare chest. "A…favor? Of me?"

With her hands in her lap, Jesse smiled, eyes darting to her curious husband and the rest in the crowd. "Yes. I was hoping that you might grace us once more with that lovely serenade you blessed the dinner with on Saturday. Before the unpleasantness. None of us had…ever _heard_ it before and I must say, it was enchanting. Would you perchance mind regaling us with an encore?"

For the second time in the evening my heart seemed to stop, and suddenly I felt perspiration in the low of my back. I laughed a smile. "Why…why of…of course I…it's just that I don't…haven't really sung for an audience. People, I mean."

"Haven't _sung_ for _people_?" She answered to the incredulity of everyone gathered. "My Dear! If that be true then it is a crime against humanity! Nikola was completely correct…you have the voice of an angel!"

Filled with trepidation but flattered, I couldn't help but smile. "I suppose…I could…" Glancing to Booker, he gleamed with the pride only a father could have. Caught in inner turmoil, I relented. With head humbled I stepped from his side, turning to look at the Morgans, the Johnsons beside one another and him, catching a look over white-coated shoulder from Robert Laslowe as he slipped outward into the foyer.

"And the other night, I do not believe we caught the name of this wonder. What is it?" Jesse followed.

Looking at Booker with a wistful smile, I fought back tears and shrugged. "I know it sounds silly, but I really don't know. It's something…something I learned by listening as a girl…a girl who was very, very much alone." I swallowed deeply and closed my eyes, clearing my throat before again opening my gaze. To him.

I'd known them forever, these words. And I'd sung them forever. Like a dream they slipped my lips.

 _Quando sono solo_

 _Sogno all'orizzonte_

 _E mancan le parole_

 _Sì lo so che non c'è luce_

 _In una stanza quando manca il sole_

 _Se non ci sei tu con me, con me_

 _Su le finestre_

 _Mostra a tutti il mio cuore_

 _Che hai acceso_

 _Chiudi dentro me_

 _La luce che_

 _Hai incontrato per strada_

 _Time to say goodbye_

 _Paesi che non ho mai_

 _Veduto e vissuto con te_

 _Adesso si li vivrò_

 _Con te partirò_

 _Su navi per mari_

 _Che, io lo so_

 _No, no, non esistono più_

 _It's time to say goodbye_

 _Quando sei lontana_

 _sogno all'orizzonte_

 _e mancan le parole,_

 _e io sì lo so_

 _che sei con me,_

 _tu mia luna tu sei qui con me,_

 _mio sole tu sei qui con me,_

 _con me, con me, con me._

 _Time to say goodbye._

 _Paesi che non ho mai_

 _veduto e vissuto con te,_

 _adesso si li vivrò._

 _Con te partirò_

 _su navi per mari_

 _che, io lo so,_

 _no, no, non esistono più,_

 _con te io li rivivrò._

 _Con te partirò_

 _su navi per mari_

 _che, io lo so,_

 _no, no, non esistono più,_

 _con te io li rivivrò._

 _Con te partirò._

 _Io con te._

 _…Ti amo_

The last I whispered. Soon I realizing the room was in silence and it was not only _his_ eyes upon me. "Was it that bad?" I chuckled nervously, finally looking about at their stunned faces.

"Quite on the contrary." Robert Johnson said with furrowed brow. "Every bit as…haunting…as the other night."

"But our Italian is uncertain." Frances Morgan continued, her wrinkled brow puzzled. "Would you be able to grace us with the meaning of the words, Dear Elizabeth?"

"If you forgive me for my own lack of Italian grammar." I deferred. "It is easier to _sing_ than to translate."

 _When I am alone, I sit and dream_

 _And when I dream, the words are missing_

 _Yes, I know that in a room so full of light_

 _That all the light is missing_

 _But I don't see you with me, with me_

 _Close up the windows, bring the sun to my room_

 _Through the door you've opened_

 _Close inside of me the light you see_

 _That you met in the darkness_

 _Time to say goodbye_

 _Horizons are never far_

 _Would I have to find them alone?_

 _Without true light of my own with you?_

 _I will go on ships over seas_

 _That I now know_

 _No, they don't exist anymore_

 _It's time to say goodbye_

 _When you were so far away_

 _I sat alone and dreamt of the horizon_

 _Now I know that you are here with me, with me_

 _Building bridges over land and sea_

 _Shine a blinding light for you and me_

 _To see, for us to be_

 _Time to say goodbye_

 _Horizons are never far_

 _Would I have to find them alone?_

 _Without true light of my own with you?_

 _I will go on ships over seas_

 _That I now know_

 _No, they don't exist anymore_

 _It's time to say goodbye_

 _So, with you I will go_

 _On ships over seas_

 _That I now know_

 _No, they don't exist anymore_

 _It's time to say goodbye_

 _So, with you I will go..._

 _I with you_

I hadn't the courage to translate the last line, though the wetness that stirred in my eyes surely said everything. With an upturn I again found Booker. His brow had eased, astonished as our gaze met one another.

"What…what does it… _mean_?" I heard a woman ask, but my gaze was still upon him. Suddenly I looked about, feeling awkward and laughed lightly. "Nothing, really. It…it's just a song."


	20. What Lies Beneath

**20\. What Lies Beneath (Near Midnight, Monday 5th of August)**

"I didn't think anyone could have sung that song more beautifully than you did other night…" I said as I approached the moonlit figure beside the pool. Her back was to me, arms crossed, my worlds nearly inaudible against the thrum of the cicadas and wind-washed surround of trees. "I was wrong."

Deep in their scheming for Tesla AC's resurrection, the Morgans' conversation had been one of places and things, machines and finance, with barely a nod to the dozens of families who no longer had a breadwinner coming home to feed them this evening…nor the procession of funerals surely soon to follow. Being the only one of Tesla's "scientists" to have survived, the men had asked questions of Elizabeth, mostly on the business end and only a handful of which she could offer any insight. Soon she'd been relegated to the back walls like myself, and before I noticed she'd slipped out through the Sitting Room's twin French doors. Try as I might to feign interest, I'd soon followed.

"I…I didn't know you heard me the other night." She said without looking, remaining instead at the side of the moon-silvered reflecting pool. Across its silvered surface wind carried ripples eddied and flowed, sparkling in the clear night air.

"I told you I was sorry, Elizabeth. And I meant it. You're the only thing in my life…the only thing that has any meaning at all."

She hadn't turned to look at me, instead wiping the corner of her eye with the sweep of a knuckle. "You know, all alone in that room for so long, I made up stories in my mind of my gallant prince coming to rescue me. I…I dreamt he had dark hair and was bold and brash and just a little bit quirky and made me laugh about myself. I drew pictures of my bird when I was a girl and painted Paris, but for some reason I could never draw…him. I could never…never see his _face_. I wanted so much to see…to see his face. And…and then one day, there you were. And it was like I'd _always_ known you." Downward her eyes cast and she found my hand. "And then I found out _why_." She finished, face morose. "My punishment for murdering a woman, I suppose."

I turned her hugged her to my chest, feeling her cheek and warmth and tears against my cheek…the butterfly kiss of her lashes. "I'm sorry, Elizabeth, but if that was what it took to get you out of there and have you with me, I'd shoot Fitzroy dead a hundred times over. I wish…I wish it were different with us, but…I just cannot… _cannot_ hurt you any more than I already have. Especially not…"

She looked away from my hand toward the tree line and the moon, turned back sadly to me to meet my gaze. Despite the darkness that silver orb had caught those eyes and their blue. "Booker…there is something I have to tell you." She almost whispered. "Something I do not believe you shall like much."

I felt my brow furrow yet kept her hands within my grasp. "Won't like? After all we've been through this last day, what could possibly be worse that _that_?" Behind us I heard the French doors from the Ballroom open wide, and onto the mansion's back promenade sallied Robert and Katherine Johnson.

"Well, there you are!" Katharine announced gaily, face all abeam. "After dinner you disappeared. We've been looking all over for you!"

"We…weren't much in the mood for light conversation or business matters." I said, reading Elizabeth's indispose.

"No, we figured not." Robert said, taking his wife's arm. "Barring Morgan Junior's offer of lodging for the two of you until Wardenclyffe rises anew, Katherine and I wished to extend the very same at 321 Lexington. You might feel more at home."

"That…is very kind of you, Robert." I said with a glance toward a receptive Elizabeth. "And we'd consider it, it's just…there is the matter of the Morellos."

"The Morellos?" Robert asked with a puzzled look, teasing his beard. "That gang of ne'er do wells up in Haarlem? Katharine has informed me of some involvement on their part."

"Yes. Specifically, Ciro and Nick Morello. Mose Scarlotti, the man who tried to kill your wife…he was their man. They were dealing arms to the Bolsheviks and trafficking in…" Wondering whether his wife had told him the whole story, I squelched the matter of the Vigors and how the mob had come about them. "I was in debt to them in the not so distant past and they haven't been so keen to forget."

"Hmmm. Perhaps with my influence in City Hall, we might obtain some restitution on your part. There may very well be a war on, you know."

"We…shall consider it." I responded, wondering if the death of three score would actually lead to anything approaching justice. "But now that the anchor tying us to here has been weighed, I did promise Elizabeth Paris." In the moonlight I saw her eyes light up.

"Yes, Paris. And it's important to smell the roses along life's path." Robert looked at his wife hanging upon his arm. Perhaps we should accompany you."

"To…Paris?" Elizabeth eked, feeling her grip tighten upon my hand.

"Why not?" Johnson answered. "Katharine and I have been there several times. If you are so all-fired eager to visit, perhaps we could be your guides…you know…show you about the sites you wish to see. And with airship service such a trip would be not only liberating after the recent tragedy but expeditious."

Initially bright, my daughter's countenance darkened. "That…that is a wonderful offer, but I don't see how we could possibly accept with Mister Tesla in such dire straits. After all that has happened and being here this evening, I've been derelict to leave him out there alone."

"Elizabeth…" I whispered.

She shook her head, eyes glancing upward to mine. "No. I know what I desired and that you promised. But I cannot…cannot just leave him. As I said, it's already been awful coming here. I shall not forgo him another day."

"You and your…" Katharine paused, eyes flitting between her husband and mine. "Guardian…were brought here for medical attention, my Dear. But you are right…we must see to the needs of his workers out at the plant."

"Katharine…" Robert said, not quite admonishing but obviously trying to reign her in.

"And then once matters are taken care…we can invite him also, Robert…it would renew him. Perhaps over the next days we should make that our work too?"

The graying Johnson sighed but smiled. "Well, I suppose we could. I should make a call back in to Randolph and have me clear my calendar."

"Oh, thank you." Katharine beamed, giddy as a schoolgirl. Quickly she turned to Elizabeth with a smile upon her face. "And after matters are concluded at Wardenclyffe, please remain with us."

Elizabeth could not help but smile. Into hers she took both of my hands. "Oh, Booker!" Beneath white, elbow length gloves her appendage was hidden and ignored…until with a jolt her eyes shot to her hand.

"I'm so sorry…did I hurt you?" I asked. She shook her head, staring at the obstinate glove until her eyes slowly turned from it to the moonlight horizon behind us. Beneath the treeline and thin clouds cutting the sky above, a white, inwardly lit one-story building rose, attended by two vacant and dark flatbed trucks…one oddly familiar, though I could not place it. The edifice was one I'd seen from my window but thought nothing of. Though of stone or concrete, it appeared little more than a shed compared to the majesty of the manor. "What is it?"

Overhead a shimmer of light lit the sky. "What…what is that building?" Elizabeth asked, rubbing her hand anxiously.

"Why, I don't know." Robert Johnson answered. "This too is only our first visit to Matinecock Point."

"Why?" Katharine asked afterward, now as troubled as Elizabeth.

"Because I felt something there."

#

"I was going aboard the yacht and found that I had nothing to light my cigar with; so I ventured to ask one of the men on the pier for a match. In return for the courtesy I handed him one of my cigars…which I think a good deal of. He accepted it promptly. 'Thanks to you,' he said, 'I was just out of tobacco.' Then he broke it into little bits and stuffed it into his pipe!"

I opened the doors to Pierpont laughing alongside his son while the wives chatted one another from their leather chairs. From the walls the servants looked my way. "Uh, Mr. Morgan…" Together the pair looked to me, looking almost like twins…even more so than the night before.

"Yes, DeWitt, isn't it…Miss Comstock's guardian?" Pierpont answered.

"Booker, I believe." Hi son corrected, strolling across the red carpet to offer me a cigar.

"Uh, thank you." I answered, taking the monstrosity in hand. Although I appreciated a good Havana, of my many vices tobacco had never been one…even ones the size of tree trunks. "The house out back, the low one story…is there, well, something inside it?"

Despite the ignorance of my question, for immediately I realized they'd not have built a structure on such magnificent grounds to remain empty, Morgan Junior simply smirked. "Something in the Grandulom?"

"Grandulom?" I asked, puzzled by the name.

"Our grounds workshop. Matinecock Point is rather new and we made a great deal of usage out of it during the construction. Since the completion last year, it's been unused save for Robert's philandering."

"Philandering?" I chuckled, uncertain whether he'd used the word loosely. "Surely not _Mr. Johnson's_?"

"Goodness, no." Jack responded, striding alongside our party with his curious father and the groundskeeper, keys jangling in the latter's hand. "Robert _Laslowe._ "

"That man?" I nearly barked. " _He_ has accommodations _here_?"

"Morgan business, DeWitt..." The Senior answered sternly, eyeing Katharine's husband as Elizabeth and the pair appeared at the open glass doors. "And if you'll pardon me, not for the prying ears of journalists either."

"Now, father." His son retorted, striving perhaps for a little more grace. "You have been through a great deal with Mr. DeWitt and his companions, and, as I heard told the full story at dinner, he was _instrumental_ in your salvation. I believe we might extend a bit of trust, particularly since his daughter is so pivotal in Mr. Tesla's plans." The elder Morgan huffed and his son turned to the head domo with a toss of head. "Master Physick, would you fetch Alvin?"

#

The groundskeeper, a thin and wiry man in coveralls and worn newsie, hunted noisily for the right key as our evening entourage marched the gravel path to the back building, eyes turning to Robert and Katharine and finally my daughter as he located the right one.

"Well, yes. I do suppose. Tesla is not the only investment I…" With hesitation he looked to his son. "We…have made."

As Morgan finished the Groundskeeper brought his keys to hand, only to find the metal door ajar. Glancing to his master, he reached out with hand to swing it open, loosing light upon the surrounding lawn and sidewalk. Before us a concrete stair led down between poured walls of the same, its bottom painted green and top of the wall white. Standing before it, the structure smacked uncannily of Tesla's so-called Bunker back at Wardenclyffe, right down to the blunt thickness of its build that could have stopped a shell from a battleship.

"Some lawn shed you have here, Morgan." I muttered to the younger of the two, unable to miss as I did so Elizabeth's continued preoccupation with her finger.

Fidgeting with that hand, she looked anxiously to me and then to the open passage. "It…it seems as though we have an invitation."

"Laslowe!" The younger Morgan called downward with an offhand glance to his father, Johnson, the Groundskeeper and last of all me. "Are you down there, man? We missed you at dinner!"

"Do come down, Gentlemen." We heard Laslowe's voice call against the light din of machinery. "You've been expected."

"Expected?" Morgan Junior asked, sharing a puzzled moment with his father.

"Indeed." The voice from below called out. "For longer than you might imagine."

"Remain here, if you would, Alvin." Morgan Junior said to his keeper. Obviously on edge about the building, the man acquiesced easily.

"Yes, Mr. Morgan. I'll be right here."

With Laslowe's mysterious words haunting my thought, Elizabeth and I looked to one another. She shrugged and with her hand in mine, we followed the Morgan men and Johnson down the stairs.

About the walls cables hung black as we descended, power coursing viscerally through their considerable lengths. Alighting upon the poured concrete of the cellar floor, we were treated to a barrage of machinery, workbenches and three men in white lab coats, one of them Robert Laslowe. At the center of the room rose between two stanchions an uncannily familiar Tesla Tear Machine. At the base of the machine the orange-haired man knelt, making some adjustment to a cable that led to the power box.

Elizabeth's hand rose to her chest in wide eyed astonishment. "Oh…oh, my God." She whispered, which shocked me for I'd never heard her to curse. "You salvaged Tesla's machine from the bay and rebuilt it!"

"A portion, yes." Laslowe said, rising from his point of adjustment to raise his goggles and reveal sympathetic blue eyes. "The portion we did not already possess." He glanced to his men. "Rather, the portion that did not perform as expected."

"Laslowe, man…what is this?" Morgan Junior asked, preempting his gape-jawed father.

"It's a Tear Machine." I answered in his stead. "It tears holes between worlds. How…" As I spoke, I noticed then on those workstations four smaller versions of the same device, perhaps cruder but all crackling, unlike the big one, with fiery power. Two men in vests and loose linen shirts came in from the back door carrying crates, and with a momentary glance our direction began loading them with the neatly stacked of bottles at the machines' feet.

Bottles that were uncannily, impossibly familiar.

"I am surprised you ask, DeWitt." The scientist answered, taking note that I had noticed. "When first I hired you, I thought that I had made it clear of the necessity of the girl to our enterprise. Nothing about that has changed."

"You…were the one who hired DeWitt?" Johnson puzzled, tipping his glasses down to see clearly. "To bring Elizabeth...here?"

As he spoke the matter reeled in my mind. Somehow I thought that in my mind Tesla, or perhaps one of the Morgans had been the origin of my employment. "You…you hired me for…" I stopped. "You're selling Vigors. To the Morellos."

"And to _others_ , for the right price." He said, eyes dwelling upon the "Elder" Morgan. "All for the financial betterment of our enterprise. As predicted, you have arrived just in time for _first light_. I might add, had it not been for your efforts at Wardenclyffe, we might _never_ have attained this moment. It is…disheartening to come face to face with one's limitations, you know. Oh, of course I have some skill in the matter, perhaps enough to engineer my small Oracules or a handful of happenstances, but sadly I lack the expertise of your…" He paused. "Ward. Or even Tesla. It is quite another matter to go from a desktop curiosity to something so…" He looked at the fully assembled Tear Machine. "So magnificent."

"My God, Laslowe…you've made my grounds into the next Wardenclyffe!" Morgan Junior exclaimed. "And under my nose! I…I don't know whether to congratulate or summon the Sheriff!"

"On that matter, good Sir, I should consider withholding your judgment for a few more moments." With a glance over his lab coat's shoulder, Laslowe nodded to his lead technician…a man to whom Elizabeth and I gasped.

"Mr. Johnnison. Our patrons have arrived. I suggest we proceed with the show. Power up the primary coils."

"Yes, Mr. Laslowe." With a curt nod the man drew down his goggles and afterward a large power switch with both arms. About the machine's periphery a glow appeared. Within its core lightning began to pop and crackle. Leaning before the stanchion beside him, Laslowe looked into the visor of the coordinate box, tweaking and tuning. Having finished stashing their boxes, the two roughs paused and looked up at the unfamiliar and otherworldly sight.

Only now recovering from the shock of finding Tesla's masterwork reassembled in its entirety, not to mention the Oracules and Vigors, I'd failed to notice components of varied make alongside, somehow eminently familiar…steel disks and capacitors, wire bundles and glass vacuum tubes. Upon the nearest bench lay a slim, tightly bound copy of a book I'd seen at Wardenclyffe and a place impossibly far away. As Laslowe continued to pontificate, surreptitiously I took one of the disks in hand, finding an embossed seal at its center, a mandala of eight spheres emanating from a central sun. _Ryan Industries_ , it read.

"Does Tesla know you've absconded with his device?" I asked cross armed. "Because you are _stealing_ it."

" _Stealing_ it?" Laslowe responded, replacing without pause those goggles over his eyes. "Why on earth would you think I am 'stealing' his device, when that is not at all what I am interested in?"

"Because, he's not here. And since he's not here, he obviously doesn't know." I looked to the devices upon the bench beside me. "These Oracules…you used them. Used them to see the future. All this to find Elizabeth so you could steal this invention for yourselves!"

"DeWitt…" The elder Morgan said, now gleaning that indirectly I was involving them. "You are accusing us unjustly!" He looked to his son. "When we have done nothing of the sort!"

"No." His son agreed sternly. "This enterprise is as much of a mystery to us as you!"

"Oh, come now…" Laslowe said, glancing through those goggles toward the bench-bound tear machines. Within their windows I could see them tuned to ticker tapes and large boards of what appeared to be a stock exchange. "For years now both you and your families have benefited from my expertise in finance, the fine art of foreseeing futures yet to come. In fact, I believe these grounds would not even exist, perhaps not for years, were it not for the insights of Electrical Holdings and your successes in the bourses. I did not hear you protesting then."

"You…used the Tear Machines you invented to cheat on stocks." Johnson said levelly, though by that inflection it seemed obvious that were some great sin. "My God, you are a crook."

Laslowe grinned thinly, the look of the Devil in him. "Perhaps in a manner of speaking, I am, Mr. Johnson, but not in the manner perhaps by which you think. In this respect, I am quite convinced that the ends justify the means."

"Laslowe, you're speaking in Tongues…" The younger Morgan exclaimed. "Explain yourself! You have never until this moment presented yourself as anything but above board!"

"You may proceed, Mr. Bannock." Behind him Laslowe's other man threw a second and final switch with a great clunk. Sparks flew, the lustrous, flat orb beneath the apex at first crackling then glowing with blue fire.

Away from that brilliance we instinctively shielded our eyes, and at that moment I heard Elizabeth cry out, clasping her hand. The scent of burnt air filled the chamber, a chamber whose walls scintillated with preternatural luminescence. Gradually our hands fell.

"What…what is _that_?" The younger Morgan whispered, face white as a sheet at the apparition before us. Beneath the orb the tear whipped and snapped like a fiery ghost. Through its writhing, sinuous gleam strange noises emanated, hints of faces or creatures undulating as if they were in a fun house mirror. Yet the wonderment was soon displaced…by consternation.

"Laslowe, if you think you have done this for us, we sincerely appreciate your devotion…but we have absolutely no intention to divesting Tesla of his invention!" The elder Morgan announced. He'd taken a step forward, almost threatening with his cane.

"It's not Tesla's." Elizabeth answered, taking a further step forward herself, gaze narrowing at Laslowe in a way accusing. "At least, not entirely. Rosalind Lutece. It was _her_ invention, the Oracule. The Tear Machine. You haven't stolen Tesla's work…you've stolen _hers_."

The machine sparked and growled behind him as her words fell silent. Laslowe's brow furrowed.

"Rosalind _Lutece_?" I queried.

Cocking his head with a purse of lip, Laslowe reached into his white lab coat's pocket. When again it appeared, he had in hand a small black revolver. My eyes widened.

Three shots went off in rapid succession, striking first the Junior Morgan, then the elder, then in the head Robert Johnson. Not having seen it coming, I dove for Elizabeth but too late.

A freight train struck me in the chest as a fourth shot echoed the laboratory's walls. I came too shaking, blood upon the floor beneath me and crashed headlong into a workbench. With my chest raging, I looked up to see Laslowe wrench by her white-gloved forearm a shrieking Elizabeth to his side.

Behind him there was motion…Johnnison. Precisely Laslowe took single-handed aim and shot the fellow between the eyes, sending him dead to the concrete beside the tear machine. The other, Bannock, had equally nowhere to go…and died in the same way.

"Monster!" Elizabeth shrieked, thrashing to free herself as her eyes sought my dying form. " _BOOKER!_ _BOOOOOOKERRRRR!_ "

Laslowe dropped the pistol, then from his pocket produced a handkerchief and cupped it over her mouth. I caught then the whiff of something pungent in the air besides the crackling fire of the portal. Ineffectually her hands found his forearm and she writhed anew, only for her eyes to roll back and fall limp in his grasp.

Across the concrete I saw the Morgans wide eyed and supine, Robert Johnson prone beside them with their blood mingling. Into my own mouth came the taste of blood.

Now the eye of the Tear Machine began to clear, the storm that had dominated its inception finally abating…resolving into a laboratory that looked very much like this very one, and within that impossible window the form of a man. A man whose voice boomed before resolving into that of a person I was impossibly familiar with.

Myself.

The End

of

CITY oF LIGHT

to be concluded in

OUTSOURCING ARMAGEDDON


End file.
